Listings for Reader:
Thomas De Quincey
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unknown : [Greek book]
Dorothy Wordsworth writes to Catherine Clarkson on 'Thursday Evening December 8th [1808]': 'Mr. De Quincey ... is beside me, quietly turning over the leaves of a Greek book ... '
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas De Quincey Print: Book
Walter Scott : The Lady of the Lake
Extract of letter from Thomas De Quincey to Mary Wordsworth, given in 30 December 1810 letter from Dorothy Wordsworth to Catherine Clarkson: '"W. Scott's last novel, the Lady of the Lake, is the grand subject of prattle and chatter hereabouts. I have read it aloud to oblige my Mother, and a more disgusting Task I never had. I verily think that it is the completest magazine of all forms of the Falsetto in feeling and diction that now exists ... I have given great offence to some of Walter's idolaters ... in particular, by calling it a novel (which indeed it is; only a very dull one)."'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas De Quincey
John Byrom : Epigram on the Feuds Between Handel and Bononcini
'De Qunicey's letter of 27 Aug 1810 to D[orothy] W[ordsworth] contains the last two lines of [John] Byrom's epigram ... which she in turn copied in her letter to Catherine Clarkson of 30 Dec. 1810.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas De Quincey
George Gordon, Lord Byron : English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
'De Quincey ... in a letter to the Wordsworths of 27 May 1809 said that he had read ... [Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers] "some weeks - or perhaps months - ago: but it is so deplorably dull and silly that I never thought of mentioning it before.'''
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas De Quincey Print: Book
Hannah More : Coelebs in Search of a Wife
'[Thomas De Quincey] got round to reading ... [Hannah More, Coelebs in Search of a Wife] only in late June or early July [1809], when "I read about 40 pages in the 1st. vol: such trash I really never did read."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas De Quincey Print: Book
James T. Fields : "On a Book of Sea-Mosses. Sent to an Eminent English Poet" in The Boston Book, being Specimens of Metropolitan Literature
'By the way, we all admire _very greatly_ your beautiful little poem in the Boston Book. I dare say you don't care for the opinion of we three "weaker vessels" [i.e. De Quincey's three daughters], though Papa, like the dutiful parent he is, and though a "vain man", admits that our judgment in such matters is equal if not sometimes better than his. However in this case we one and all came separately to the conclusion that there was exquisite poetic grace and beauty in the lines. Who is the Poet you sent the mosses too [sic]? for we don't know one who has spoken of Venice that has been living since you could have written this. My sister Florence says that with one or two exceptions in the case of Longfellow and that most beautiful of writers Hawthorne, yours is nearly the only good thing in the book. I have not had time to look it over yet.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas De Quincey Print: Book
Nathaniel Hawthorne : The House of Seven Gables
'The more I read of Mr. Hawthorne's writings the more intense does my admiration become. I read over the other day a part of his "House of the Seven Gables" and I don't remember any delineation of character under Shakespeare's that is to me so exquisitely fascinating as his of Phoebe, and it is the one I think, among all his characters which mark him most of all as a man of very great genius, for in the hands of any but such a man, instead of being as she is "A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a spirit still and bright With something of an Angel light." she would have been a common place stupid creature who only was good because she had not will to be bad [...] The contrast too of the restless minded metaphysical Holgrave always searching into the cause of things, and his tremendous delight in watching the development of character are admirable [underlined]. This latter feature is I am sure a marking characteristic of Mr. Hawthorne's and I just wish to warn him that though I have in thought [underlined] quite an agonizing sympathy with him in it, yet when carried to such a pitch as he does in practice that he won't give a hand to a pair of poor lovers that have fallen into the gutter on a rainy night because his part is only to be a spectator. I have no patience with him, and beg to say if I catch him at anything like that I will commit an assault upon him as sure as fate. I should tell you, as more important than any thing that I can say on the subject, that for the first time Papa read "The House of the Seven Gables" a few days ago [...] he said that if anyone wished to give a very favorable notion to a non-German reader of Jean Paul Richter's style of thought and sentiment they could not do it more successfully than by pointing out many passages in it [i.e. the Hawthorne], and when I tell you that Papa admires him more than any Author of his class by far, and has often regretted our not being German scholars simply on his account you will have an idea....'
