√ | Century of Experience | Evidence | Name of Reader / Listener / Reading Group | Author of Text | Title of Text | Form of Text | |
| 1900-1945 | 13/3/1904 - "He was able to read on the last morning of his life, asking me to bring him an article on Shakespeare and... | Leslie Stephen | Thomas Hardy | | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1900-1945 | 13/3/1904 - "He was able to read on the last morning of his life, asking me to bring him an article on Shakespeare and... | Leslie Stephen | | [an article on Shakespeare] | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | "I took in Mr Holmes' humorous poems & Davidson (a very jolly little friend of mine) another light work & we sat toget... | Leslie Stephen | Oliver Wendell Holmes | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "Do you know that I have just read in a book that my grandfather James Stephen invented the orders in council - which ... | Leslie Stephen | | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I am now going in for another shot at "Christie's Faith". I am feeling devilishly lazy - Oh! I will try a pipe - it m... | Leslie Stephen | | Christie's Faith | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I have hardly read a book except for strictly professional purposes for 3 months & more. One of the few I have read i... | Leslie Stephen | W Hepworth Dixon | New America | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?Talking of books, you will perhaps be in the way of seeing a volume of Essays on Reform just published. You may find ... | Leslie Stephen | | [Essays on Reform] | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "From your account of the absence of newspapers - on wh. I congratulate you sincerely - you may possibly have heard th... | Leslie Stephen | | Newspapers | Print: Newspaper |
| 1850-1899 | "You say you have been reading some French novels lately. I am much given to that amusement though I never read de Mus... | Leslie Stephen | | [Some French novels] | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I read with satisfaction Lowell's poem wh. you sent me. The only fault I find with him is that he occasionally lets h... | Leslie Stephen | James Russell Lowell | Agassiz | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | "I have read with great interest your article on Victor Hugo & also that which appeared in the last number of Macmillan." | Leslie Stephen | Robert Louis Stevenson | Ordered South | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | "By an accidental combination of circumstances I only saw your article on my 'secularism' this afternoon. I have no co... | Leslie Stephen | Frederick Denison Maurice | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "Excuse all this; but though you may not easily give me credit I really admired Mr Maurice; I attended his lectures as... | Leslie Stephen | Frederick Denison Maurice | | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 1900-1945 | ?I always have a profound impression that human beings have been much more like each other than we fancy since they go... | Leslie Stephen | Robert Browning | | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 1900-1945 | ?I always have a profound impression that human beings have been much more like each other than we fancy since they go... | Leslie Stephen | William Shakespeare | | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 1900-1945 | ?I always have a profound impression that human beings have been much more like each other than we fancy since they go... | Leslie Stephen | Alfred Tennyson | | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 1900-1945 | ?I always have a profound impression that human beings have been much more like each other than we fancy since they go... | Leslie Stephen | John Milton | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?To say the truth, my compliment is not so strong as it seems; for there is no English paper now wh. I can read withou... | Leslie Stephen | | The Spectator | Print: Newspaper |
| 1850-1899 | ?To say the truth, my compliment is not so strong as it seems; for there is no English paper now wh. I can read withou... | Leslie Stephen | | The Pall Mall | Print: Newspaper |
| 1850-1899 | ?To say the truth, my compliment is not so strong as it seems; for there is no English paper now wh. I can read withou... | Leslie Stephen | | The Times | Print: Newspaper |
| 1850-1899 | ?To say the truth, my compliment is not so strong as it seems; for there is no English paper now wh. I can read withou... | Leslie Stephen | | The World | Print: Newspaper |
| 1850-1899 | ?Do you sympathise with me when I say that the only writer whom I have been able to read with pleasure through this ni... | Leslie Stephen | William Wordsworth | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?And this reminds me by a further association of ideas that you would do well to look ? if you like to have your stoma... | Leslie Stephen | Frederick Farrar | The Life of Christ | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "Payn showed me yesterday an article of yours upon a Miss Grant of whom I confess, I have heard for the first time; bu... | Leslie Stephen | William Ernest Henley | Miss Grant | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | "I have been through a course of perhaps the dreariest reading in the whole of English literature - I mean, 18th centu... | Leslie Stephen | | [18th and 19th century sermons] | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I go off tomorrow to Cumberland where I shall climb the British Mt Blanc & forget for a short time that there are suc... | Leslie Stephen | James Russell Lowell | Pictures from Appledore | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I have read, too, or repeated, for I know him by heart, our old friend Omar Khyyam. He is grand in his way & if spiri... | Leslie Stephen | Omar Khayyam | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "Morley has just published a book on 'Compromise'; out of the Fortnightly. I think his writing improves. It seems to m... | Leslie Stephen | John Morley | On Compromise | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "And that reminds me that the last Contemporary is worth looking at, not only for Gladstone's twaddle about Ritualism,... | Leslie Stephen | W E Gladstone | Ritualism and Ritual | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | "And that reminds me that the last Contemporary is worth looking at, not only for Gladstone's twaddle about Ritualism,... | Leslie Stephen | Matthew Arnold | Review of Objections to Literature and Dogma | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | "I am spending a quiet Sunday morning in Birbeck's smoking room - reading a novel." | Leslie Stephen | | [Novel] | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 | "It is very like Shirley except that there is no heather & the people are all of them of the Yorkshire kind as describ... | Leslie Stephen | Charlotte Bronte | Shirley | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | "He [Mr Morrison] breeds horses, & the colts came up & talked to us, & his great kennelfulls of dogs who came to be pa... | Leslie Stephen | Anne Bronte | Tenant of Wildfell Hall | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | "The longer you are married, the better you will like it & then I hope you will show proper gratitude to your adviser ... | Leslie Stephen | Francois de La Rochefoucauld | Reflexions ou sentences et maximes morales | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 | "Rather vexatiously Mat Arnold has sent in an article wh. I must read before it goes in because it is supposed to be h... | Leslie Stephen | Matthew Arnold | Literature and Dogma (possibly) | Manuscript: proofs of article |
| 1850-1899 | We have all read, by the way, The Poet at the breakfast table & sent him our sincere compliments on his performance." | Leslie Stephen | Sir Oliver Wendell Holmes | The Poet at the Breakfast Table | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 | "I think, for example, that Shirley is very superior to Dorothea Brooke. She has far more character & power, though sh... | Leslie Stephen | Charlotte Bronte | Shirley | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I think, for example, that Shirley is very superior to Dorothea Brooke. She has far more character & power, though sh... | Leslie Stephen | George Eliot | Middlemarch | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 | "But if you mean seriously to ask me what critical books I recommend, I can only say that I recommend none. I think as... | Leslie Stephen | Thomas Hardy | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "S[ain]te Beuve & Mat. Arnold (in a smaller way) are the only modern critics wh. seem to me worth reading - perhaps, t... | Leslie Stephen | Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "S[ain]te Beuve & Mat. Arnold (in a smaller way) are the only modern critics wh. seem to me worth reading - perhaps, t... | Leslie Stephen | Matthew Arnold | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "S[ain]te Beuve & Mat. Arnold (in a smaller way) are the only modern critics wh. seem to me worth reading - perhaps, t... | Leslie Stephen | Lowell | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "If I were in the vein, I think I should exhort you above all to read George Sand, whose country stories seem to me pe... | Leslie Stephen | George Sand | Les maitres Sonneurs | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I may tell you that, although your Hospital Sonnets did not seem to attract much notice at the time, as, indeed, I a... | Leslie Stephen | William Ernest Henley | Hospital Sonnets | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | "I may tell you that, although your Hospital Sonnets did not seem to attract much notice at the time, as, indeed, I a... | Leslie Stephen | William Ernest Henley | Children: Private Ward | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | "I tried to read Lord Lytton's Lucile which is rot." | Leslie Stephen | Robert Bulwer-Lytton | Lucile | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I have led a specially quiet life of late; amusing myself by reading a little biography for a change - a good many Ne... | Leslie Stephen | | [biographies] | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I have been amusing myself down here with reading Browning - some of him for the first time; & I wonder more and more... | Leslie Stephen | Robert Browning | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "The inn was shut up; but Mr Walker's friend (I suppose) had just looked in to see after his property & was quite amia... | Leslie Stephen | [a thief] | [comic poem] | Print: Newspaper |
| 1850-1899 | "The little ones were very good: all 3 sitting on my knee to look at the bear book & listening whilst Nessa explained ... | Leslie Stephen | | ["The Bear Book"] | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I am, I see, talking pessimism. It is not very easy to talk anything else just now. When I read our debates, I someti... | Leslie Stephen | | The Latterday Pamphlets | |
| 1850-1899 | "I began Robinson Crusoe with Laura. I think that she will be up to it & we made a pretty good start." | Leslie Stephen | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "This bit of Tennyson sticks in my head; so I write it down: - 'All along the valley where the waters flow / I walked ... | Leslie Stephen | Alfred Tennyson | In the Valley of the Cauteretz | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "Poor fellow! I really pity him; for his last numbers of the Fors [Clavigera] seem to imply growing distraction of min... | Leslie Stephen | John Ruskin | Fors [Clavigera] | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I finished Daudet who is stupid & took to Plato who is first rate for sleeping purposes. I can just puzzle it out eno... | Leslie Stephen | Alphonse Daudet | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I finished Daudet who is stupid & took to Plato who is first rate for sleeping purposes. I can just puzzle it out eno... | Leslie Stephen | Plato | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I have read a book or two from the 'Library' here, wh. fills a small cupboard & passes time fairly." | Leslie Stephen | | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I stayed at home this morning - not that there is anything new in that - until lunch, and did very little, very easy ... | Leslie Stephen | M.G. Lewis | The Monk | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I am really quite well though perhaps a few days more will be a good pick me up. My brain is quite dry. We don't even... | Leslie Stephen | | Pall Mall Gazette | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | "Besides wh. I have been looking at Hale's book 'Lowell & his friends'; wh. is not, I think, very much of a book but w... | Leslie Stephen | E. E. Hale | James Russell Lowell and his friends | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | "I have read your book with keen interest. I always read you with the pleasure of a literary critic recognising (and e... | Leslie Stephen | William James | The varieties of religious experience | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'Is not your countryman Grant White a terrible bore? The question is prompted by the fact of me having just read a rev... | Leslie Stephen | Richard Grant White | [on Copyright] | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'Is not your countryman Grant White a terrible bore? The question is prompted by the fact of me having just read a rev... | Leslie Stephen | Various | Saturday Review | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | 'Is not your countryman Grant White a terrible bore? The question is prompted by the fact of me having just read a rev... | Leslie Stephen | Richard Grant White | Washington Adams | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'I have ? read your criticism of my book. I will not say that you have given no twinges to my vanity; but I will say t... | Leslie Stephen | Henry Sidgwick | Review of Leslie Stephen's The Science of Ethics | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | 'Dear Mr Gosse, I hope that I am not impertinent in telling you how heartily I have enjoyed your Gray. I think it one ... | Leslie Stephen | Edmund Gosse | Life of Gray | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'Dear Mr Gosse, I hope that I am not impertinent in telling you how heartily I have enjoyed your Gray. I think it one ... | Leslie Stephen | William Shakespeare | unknown | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'My dear Norton, since I wrote to you last, I have read Mr Chauncey Wright?s book or nearly all & - to say the truth ?... | Leslie Stephen | Chauncey Wright | Philosophical Discussions | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'The statement wh. I transmitted to you about Cortes was the vaguest but I will see if I can find out anything from my... | Leslie Stephen | Various | Saturday Review, The | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | 'The hero seems to me superior to the Rochester or the Louis Moore type, who are all rather lay-figures. Nor do I admi... | Leslie Stephen | G. B. Smith | The Brontes | Manuscript: article |
| 1850-1899 | 'The hero seems to me superior to the Rochester or the Louis Moore type, who are all rather lay-figures. Nor do I admi... | Leslie Stephen | Charlotte Bronte | Jane Eyre | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'The hero seems to me superior to the Rochester or the Louis Moore type, who are all rather lay-figures. Nor do I admi... | Leslie Stephen | Emily Bronte | Wuthering Heights | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'I prefer Villette to Shirley, on the whole.' | Leslie Stephen | Charlotte Bronte | Villette | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'I prefer Villette to Shirley, on the whole.' | Leslie Stephen | Charlotte Bronte | Shirley | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'I finished old Newman?s book coming down & as the book is too metaphysical to give you pleasure I will tell you what ... | Leslie Stephen | John Henry Newman | An essay in aid of a grammar of assent | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'He [Leslie Stephen's brother] wrote articles for the Pall Mall Gazette all the way out to India; enough, he says, to ... | Leslie Stephen | J.F. Stephen | Pall Mall Gazette, articles | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | 'To say the truth, much as I like reading them & specially Balzac and Sand, & little as I am given to overstrictness i... | Leslie Stephen | unknown | [French novels] | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'To say the truth, much as I like reading them & specially Balzac and Sand, & little as I am given to overstrictness i... | Leslie Stephen | George Sand | unknown | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'To say the truth, much as I like reading them & specially Balzac and Sand, & little as I am given to overstrictness i... | Leslie Stephen | Honore de Balzac | unknown | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 | ?Of course, it is true that English writers ? Thackeray conspicuously so ? are injured by being cramped as to love in ... | Leslie Stephen | William Thackeray | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?I hope that you have read Carlyle in August Macmillan & that you appreciate him. Of course it is damned nonsense but ... | Leslie Stephen | Thomas Carlyle | Shooting Niagara | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1850-1899 | "If it was not enough to have all the Catholic theology suddenly discharged upon one, I have suddenly taken a fancy t... | Leslie Stephen | William Shakespeare | Henry VIII | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?I bought the other day a copy of Aquinas & find him very good reading. Only to understand him one ought obviously to ... | Leslie Stephen | Thomas Aquinas | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?There are plenty of things to groan over if so disposed; a fact wh. has been lately impressed upon me by reading some... | Leslie Stephen | John Ruskin | Fors Clavigera: Letters to the workenand labourers of Great Britain | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?I have read your MS with great pleasure; though I had seen most of it before. As you ask me for my opinion I will say... | Leslie Stephen | Thomas Hardy | | Manuscript: Unknown |
| 1900-1945 | ?I have received your book and in spite of your permission to abstain, have read it from first to last? My ignorance o... | Leslie Stephen | Herbert Fisher | Studies in Napoleonic statesmanship: Germany | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 | "Then I promised Morley to contribute to a continuation of the 'Men of Letters' series a book upon George Eliot. I fin... | Leslie Stephen | George Eliot | Romola | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | "Ruskin's death has set me reading some of his books and among others 'Praeterita' in wh. I read of your first acquain... | Leslie Stephen | John Ruskin | Praeterita | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | "Ruskin's death has set me reading some of his books and among others 'Praeterita' in wh. I read of your first acquain... | Leslie Stephen | John Ruskin | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "Why do you say that I don't like Dante? I read him through with the help of your crib & was profoundly impressed." | Leslie Stephen | Dante Alighieri | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?I have to thank you for the ?Wessex Poems? which came to me with the kind inscription and gave me a real pleasure? I ... | Leslie Stephen | Thomas Hardy | Far from the madding crowd | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?I have to thank you for the ?Wessex Poems? which came to me with the kind inscription and gave me a real pleasure? I ... | Leslie Stephen | Thomas Hardy | The Wessex Poems | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?I have waited to thank you for your book till I had read it & write now ? before having quite finished ? because I ca... | Leslie Stephen | Herbert Fisher | The Medieval Empire | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?Another book is Jowett?s life; wh. I have read with a good deal of interest. It is too long & too idolatrous; but see... | Leslie Stephen | Benjamin Jowett | Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?I have read two books lately wh. interested me. One for wh. you will not care is a history of English law down to the... | Leslie Stephen | F. W. Maitland | History of English Law | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?Boswell showed his genius in setting forth Johnson?s weaknesses as well as his strength. But if Boswell had been John... | Leslie Stephen | James Boswell | The Life of Samuel Johnson | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'Then I called at Lucy Clifford?s. She showed me a short preface she has written to those stories of hers about "World... | Leslie Stephen | Lucy Clifford | Love letters of a worldly woman | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?The other day I was reading a life in wh. a biographer calmly states that his hero was imprisoned by the Long Parl[ia... | Leslie Stephen | | [a biography] | Unknown |
| 1850-1899 | ?Meanwhile I have a book from you, wh. I ought to have acknowledged. I guess that Julia did my duty & I did it better ... | Leslie Stephen | James Russell Lowell | Democracy and other addresses | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I think you have done Mrs B[rowning] very well. I have read it & put in some savage criticism, marking, however, what... | Leslie Stephen | Anne Isabella Ritchie | 'Mrs Browning' (life for the DNB) | Unknown |
| 1850-1899 | ?I finished poor old Carlyle last night. Froude?s case is curious. He expresses & I think, really feels, veneration & ... | Leslie Stephen | James A. Froude | Thomas Carlyle: A History of his Life in London 1834-1881 | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?the snow left off a bit after lunch & we strolled out for a walk? so after pounding a mile or two out & home along sl... | Leslie Stephen | Plato | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I had Plato in my pocket & intermittently read through the Protagorus - as well as I could - which lasted me till Bri... | Leslie Stephen | Plato | Protagorus | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'Do you know his [Sir Alfred Lyall's] books? The "Eastern Studies" is, I think, the most interesting work of the kind ... | Leslie Stephen | Sir Alfred Lyall | Eastern Studies, The | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?His [Sir Alfred Lyall] little volume of poems too is very good in its way. When I came back from America last time, I... | Leslie Stephen | Sir Alfred Lyall | Verses written in India | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?I have read two books lately wh. interested me. One for wh. you will not care is a history of English law down to the... | Leslie Stephen | A. J. Balfour | Foundations of Belief | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?Another book, by the way, worth a glance is a collection of old S. T. Coleridge?s letters. I have had to write the be... | Leslie Stephen | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'I find distraction in writing, with a growing sense that it is not worth the trouble; but at 64 it is too late to lea... | Leslie Stephen | George Santayana | unknown | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'It occurred to me lately to read Dante again &, as I required a crib very constantly I took yours & by its help went ... | Leslie Stephen | Dante Alighieri | unknown | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?I have read your history; and when I say ?read? I mean that I have turned over the pages and read all such parts as w... | Leslie Stephen | F W Maitland | History of English Law | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?The best I have read are two or three of Swift?s, who has a real go in him wh. cannot be quenched even by theology. T... | Leslie Stephen | Swift | sermons | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?In your last ? letter you spoke very highly of Ecce Homo. To say the truth I don?t agree in your estimate ? partly be... | Leslie Stephen | John Robert Seeley | Ecce Homo: a survey of the life and work of Jesus Christ | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?I have read with great interest your article on Victor Hugo & also that which appeared in the last number of Macmilla... | Leslie Stephen | Robert Louis Stevenson | article on Victor Hugo | Print: Serial / periodical |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 | ?To my mind Hugo is far more dramatic in spirit than Fielding, though his method involves (as you show exceedingly wel... | Leslie Stephen | Victor Hugo | | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 | ?To my mind Hugo is far more dramatic in spirit than Fielding, though his method involves (as you show exceedingly wel... | Leslie Stephen | Henry Fielding | | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 1850-1899 | ?To my mind Hugo is far more dramatic in spirit than Fielding, though his method involves (as you show exceedingly wel... | Leslie Stephen | Samuel Richardson | | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | ?Have you read Mat Arnold?s letters? Some, I see, are addressed to you? I can imagine old Carlyle taking himself to be... | Leslie Stephen | Matthew Arnold | Letters of Matthew Arnold: 1848-1888 | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I was thinking of Eliot [Norton] the other day. When he was here in the summer he came one day to see Miss Valey. Sh... | Leslie Stephen | Margaret Veley | Marriage of Shadows and Other Poems | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | 'Father is rehearsing Drake's Drum for Wednesday'. | Leslie Stephen | Henry John Newbolt | Drake's Drum | Print: Book |