Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 19324

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'It was only a month before or perhaps it was only a week before, that I had read to him aloud from beginning to end, and to his perfect satisfaction, as he lay on the bed not being very well at the time, the proofs of his translation of Victor Hugo's "Toilers of the Sea". Such was[...] my first introduction to the sea in literature. [...] I am not likely to forget the process of being trained in the art of reading aloud.'
Century: 1850-1899
Date: Between 1 1866 and 31 Dec 1868
Country: Russia
Time: n/a
Place: city: Chernikhov
   
Type of Experience (Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Type of Experience (Listener):
solitary reactive unknown
single serial unknown

Reader/Listener/Reading Group:

Reader:Joseph Conrad
Age Child (0-17)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 3 Dec 1857
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: Child
Religion: Polish Catholic
Country of origin: Poland
Country of experience: Russia
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
Apollonius N. Korzeniowski, Conrad's father
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Victor Hugo
Title: Les Travailleurs de la Mer
Genre: Fiction
Form of Text: Manuscript: Codex, Sheet, Conrad's father's translation into Polish.
Publication details: First published in French 1866 Verboeckhoven, Brussels. Polish translation by Apollonius N Korzeniowski
Provenance: read in situ
MS written and owned by Conrad's father

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 19324  
Source - Print  
  Author: Joseph Conrad
  Editor: n/a
  Title: A Personal Memoir
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1998
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 74
  Additional comments: see also letter to Edward Garnett 20th January 1900.

Citation: Joseph Conrad, A Personal Memoir (London, 1998), p. 74, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=19324, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

Conrad claimed to have been eight or nine years old at the time (see letter to Edward Garnett 20th January 1900.) This suggests that the Polish translation was carried out soon after the original publication in French, though it was never published.

 

 

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