Evidence: | 'In various letters to Osborne he mentions having received "Tom Jones" which he did not care for; "Jane Eyre" he thought a "wonderful book"; in a volume titled "British Dramatists" he thought Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" "the best by head and shoulders"; Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship" he admired "exceedingly" (he proceeded to write an essay of twenty-six notepaper pages on Carlyle); of Thackeray's "Henry Esmond" he told Osborne that he thought it a "great book", though he disliked its "overelaboration": "perhaps you may say it is merely an additional grace - but I think it stands rather in the way of true eloquence and geninely forceful tragedy, not that I deny there is both eloquence and tragedy in 'Esmond', but I think there might have been more and grander but for that elaborateness".' |
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Century: | 1850-1899 | ||||||||||
Date: | Between 28 Feb 1880 and 27 Feb 1881 | ||||||||||
Country: | England | ||||||||||
Time: | n/a | ||||||||||
Place: | city: Bideford county: Devon |
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Type of Experience (Reader): |
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Type of Experience (Listener): |
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Reader: | Arthur Symons |
Age | Child (0-17) |
Gender | Male |
Date of Birth | 28 Feb 1865 |
Socio-economic group: | Clergy (includes all denominations) |
Occupation: | Wesleyan preacher's son, later poet |
Religion: | Wesleyan, later none |
Country of origin: | England |
Country of experience: | England |
Listeners present if any: (e.g. family, servants,
friends, workmates) |
n/a |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Author: | John Webster |
Title: | The Duchess of Malfi |
Genre: | Drama |
Form of Text: | Print: Book |
Publication details: | read in an anthology titled British Dramatists |
Provenance: | borrowed (other) borrowed from or given by Osborne |
Record ID: | 12149 | |
Source - | ||
Author: | Karl Beckson | |
Editor: | n/a | |
Title: | Arthur Symons: A Life | |
Place of Publication: | Oxford | |
Date of Publication: | 1987 | |
Vol: | n/a | |
Page: | 11 | |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Citation: | Karl Beckson, Arthur Symons: A Life (Oxford, 1987), p. 11, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=12149, accessed: 29 March 2024 |
[Quotations from three undated letters to Osborne, held at Princeton's Symons archive] |
Reading Experience Database version 2.0. Page updated: 27th Apr 2016 3:15pm (GMT)