Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 20710

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'what he read during these two years [between Stourbridge school and Oxford] , he told me, was not works of mere amusement, "not voyages and travels, but all literature, Sir, all ancient writers, all manly: though but little Greek, only some of Anacreon and Hesiod; but in this irregular manner (added he) I had looked into a great many books, which were not commonly known at the Universities, where they seldom read any books but what are put into their hands by their tutors; so that when I came to Oxford, Dr Adams, now master of Pembroke College, told me I was the best qualified for the university that he had ever known come there".'
Century: 1700-1799
Date: Between 1 Jan 1725 and 1 Oct 1728
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: city: Lichfield
county: Staffordshire
   
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:Samuel Johnson
Age Child (0-17)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 18 Sep 1709
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: later writer
Religion: n/a
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: Anacreon
Title: n/a
Genre: Classics, Poetry
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 20710  
Source - Print  
  Author: James Boswell
  Editor: R. W. Chapman
  Title: Life of Johnson
  Place of Publication: Oxford
  Date of Publication: 1980
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 44
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: James Boswell, R. W. Chapman (ed.), Life of Johnson  (Oxford, 1980), p. 44, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=20710, accessed: 29 March 2024

Additional comments:

Originally published 1791.

 

 

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