Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 11367

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'Maybe to neutralise the Penny Dreadful, Cassells brought out the Penny Classics. These had a bluish-green cover and were world famous novels in abridged form, but sixty or seventy pages. And W.T. Stead brought out the Penny Poets. The covers of these were pimply surface-paper, a bright orange colour, and they contained selections from Longfellow, Tennyson, Keats, and many others. I first read "Hiawatha" and "Evangeline" in the Penny Poets and thought them marvellous; so marvellous that I began to write 'poetry' myself. Stead also brought out another penny book; this had a pink cover and contained selections from the ancient classics: stories from Homer, the writings of Pliny the younger, Aesop's "Fables". I took a strong fancy to Aesop, he was a Greek slave from Samos, in the sixth century BC, and workpeople were only just beginning to be called "wage slaves". I read all these; non-selective and Catholic my reading...'
Century: 1850-1899, 1900-1945
Date: unknown
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: n/a
   
Type of Experience (Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Type of Experience (Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Reader/Listener/Reading Group:

Reader:Joseph Stamper
Age Child (0-17)
Gender Male
Date of Birth n/a
Socio-economic group: Labourer (non-agricultural)
Occupation: ironmoulder, later writer
Religion: n/a
Country of origin: England
Country of experience: England
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Title: [unknown]
Genre: Poetry
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: W.T. Stead's Penny Poets edition
Provenance: owned

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 11367  
Source - Print  
  Author: Joseph Stamper
  Editor: n/a
  Title: So long ago
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1960
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 162
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Joseph Stamper, So long ago (London, 1960), p. 162, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=11367, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

 

 

Reading Experience Database version 2.0.  Page updated: 27th Apr 2016  3:15pm (GMT)