Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 12590

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
Elizabeth Missing Sewell, on the anonymity of her first publication ("Stories on the Lord's Prayer", serialised in "The Cottager's Monthly Visitor" in 1840): 'I did not give my name, and no one knew anything about it, except my mother and sisters. I have often vexed myself since -- thinking that I did not tell my father -- but I had a dread of any person talking to me about my writing, and I knew that if he was pleased he would not be able to keep himself from telling me so. I was reading the little book aloud to my mother one evening when he was in the room, and not being well was lying on the sofa half asleep, as I thought; but he listened, and I think was interested, for he asked me what I was reading. I forget exactly what answer I made, but it certainly was not that I was reading anything of my own, and so I lost the opportunity of giving him pleasure.'
Century: 1800-1849
Date: Between 1 Jan 1840 and 31 Dec 1840
Country: Great Britain
Time: evening
Place: city: Newport
county: Isle of Wight
specific address: High Street
   
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:Elizabeth Missing Sewell
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Female
Date of Birth 19 Feb 1815
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: Writer
Religion: Church of England
Country of origin: Great Britain
Country of experience: Great Britain
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
Thomas Sewell (reader's father) Jane Sewell (reader's mother)
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Elizabeth Missing Sewell
Title: Stories on the Lord's Prayer
Genre: Other religious, Fiction
Form of Text: Print: Unknown
Publication details: 1840
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 12590  
Source - Print  
  Author: Elizabeth Missing Sewell
  Editor: Eleanor L. Sewell
  Title: The Autobiography of Elizabeth Missing Sewell
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1908
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 66-67
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Elizabeth Missing Sewell, Eleanor L. Sewell (ed.), The Autobiography of Elizabeth Missing Sewell (London, 1908), p. 66-67, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=12590, accessed: 29 March 2024

Additional comments:

Not clear whether Sewell reading the version of her work serialised(with slight alterations to 'expressions about baptism') in "The Cottager's Monthly Visitor", or the reprint, which gave the stories in their original form, and which appeared (apparently as a book) 'soon after', its publication having been arranged by Sewell's brother William (see p.66 in source).

 

 

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