Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

Basic Search

Advanced Search

Record 16738

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 18 October 1841: 'I had heard of Lucretia Davidson, in a passing way, & I never read her memoir. Therefore notwithstanding the obviousness of the influence of her memory, the book you sent me suggested something better & brighter than an "imitation." [...] there is, I think (in the midst of the muck which is mere [italics]warbling[end italics]) indication of something capable of growth & survival beyond the hour of excitement & desease [...] It is a natural question to ask -- "Was it genius -- or a show?" -- and in the multitude of rhymings I stopped to ask it [...] Was Lucretia older than her sister at the time of death? -- & was her poetry more promising? [...] It is an interesting memoir [...] I thought it very painful. I would willingly hope that she was something more than a precocious prodigy.'
Century: 1800-1849
Date: Between 1 Oct 1841 and 18 Oct 1841
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:Elizabeth Barrett
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Female
Date of Birth 6 Mar 1806
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: Writer
Religion: Evangelical
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: Washington Irving
Title: Biography and Poetical Remains of the late Margaret Miller Davidson
Genre: Essays / Criticism, Poetry, Biography
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: 1841
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 16738  
Source - Print  
  Author: n/a
  Editor: Philip Kelley and Ronald Hudson
  Title: The Brownings' Correspondence
  Place of Publication: Winfield
  Date of Publication: 1987
  Vol: 5
  Page: 148-149
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Philip Kelley and Ronald Hudson (ed.), The Brownings' Correspondence (Winfield, 1987), 5, p. 148-149, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=16738, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

See p.150 ns 6 and 7 in source for details of Lucretia and Margaret Davisdson, sisters and literary prodigies who died at the ages of sixteen and fifteen respectively; the first memoir that Barrett refers to is Poetical Remains of the Late Lucretia Maria Davidson ... With a Biography by Miss Sedgwick (1841)

 

 

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