Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 20515

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'I have lately had a long bad cold, such as reduces one to trash and slops, novels and barley water, and amongst the books my friends kindly sent me to while away time was the first volume of one puffed in the newspaper, "The Last Man", by the authoress of "Frankenstein". I would not trouble them for any more of it, but really there were sentences in it so far exceeding those Don Quixote ran mad in trying to comprehend, that I could not help copying out a few of them; they would have turned Feliciano de Silva's own brains. [LS then quotes passages beginning "Her eyes were impenetrably deep" and "The overflowing warmth of her heart"...] Since the wonderful improvement that somebody who shall be nameless, together with Miss Edgeworth and one or two more, have made in novels, I imagined such stuff as this had not ventured to show its head, though I remember plenty of it in the days of my youth. So for old acquaintance-sake I give it welcome. But if the boys and girls begin afresh to take it for sublime and beautiful, it ought to get a rap and be put down'.
Century: 1800-1849
Date: Until: 24 Apr 1826
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: city: London
specific address: Gloucester Place
   
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:Louisa, Lady Stuart
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Female
Date of Birth 12 Aug 1757
Socio-economic group: Royalty / aristocracy
Occupation: aristocrat
Religion: unknown
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: Mary Shelley
Title: Last Man, The
Genre: Fiction
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: borrowed (private library)
sent by a friend

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 20515  
Source - Print  
  Author: Louisa Stuart
  Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
  Title: Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart, The
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1926
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 209
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Louisa Stuart, R. Brimley Johnson (ed.), Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart, The (London, 1926), p. 209, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=20515, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

Letter to Walter Scott

 

 

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