Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 20499

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'I have been reading such lots of law, and it seems to take away the power of writing from me. From morning to night, so often as I have a spare moment, I am in the embraces of a law book: barren embraces.'
Century: 1850-1899
Date: Until: 29 Jun 1875
Country: Scotland
Time: morning
afternoon
evening
night
Place: city: Edinburgh
county: Lothian
specific address: [Swanston Cottage, Lothianburn]
   
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:Robert Louis Stevenson
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 13 Nov 1850
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: Aspiring writer and intermittent law student
Religion: Uncommitted.
Country of origin: Scotland
Country of experience: Scotland
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: unknown
Title: [law books]
Genre: Law
Form of Text: Print: Book, Law books in the plural.
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 20499  
Source - Print  
  Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
  Editor: Bradford A. Booth
  Title: The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879
  Place of Publication: New Haven and London
  Date of Publication: 1994
  Vol: 2
  Page: 145
  Additional comments: Letter 398, To Frances Sitwell, Tuesday [29 June 1875], [Swanston]. Co-editor Ernest Mehew, The material in square brackets has been added by the editors

Citation: Robert Louis Stevenson, Bradford A. Booth (ed.), The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879 (New Haven and London, 1994), 2, p. 145, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=20499, accessed: 29 March 2024

Additional comments:

See also p. 139, Letter 392. RLS is still reading law textbooks in preparation for the imminent Edinburgh University Final Examination at which he will qualify as Advocate and consequently be called to the Scottish Bar, though he will not practise.

 

 

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