Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 20770

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'[editor's words] without literary pretensions, Mrs Marshall had a genuine love of reading, and when no other engagement intervened, it was one of her domestic regulations, that a book should be read aloud in the evening for general amusement; the office of reader commonly devolved on Miss Hamilton, who was thus led to remark that the best prose style was always that which could be longest read without exhausting the breath. These social studies were far from satisfying her avidity for information; and she constantly perused many books by stealth. Mrs Marshall, on discovering what had been her private occupation, expressed neither praise nor blame, but quietly advised her to avoid any display of superior knowledge by which she might be subjected to the imputation of pedantry. This admonition produced the desired effect, since, as she herself informs us, she once hid a volume of Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism under the cushion of a chair lest she should be detected in a study which prejudice and ignorance might pronounce unfeminine'.
Century: 1700-1799
Date: From: 1 Jan 1772
Country: Scotland
Time: n/a
Place: county: Stirlingshire
   
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 Hamilton
Age Child (0-17)
Gender Female
Date of Birth 25 Jul 1758
Socio-economic group: Gentry
Occupation: n/a
Religion: Episcopalian
Country of origin: Ireland
Country of experience: Scotland
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Henry Home, Lord Kames
Title: Elements of Criticism
Genre: Philosophy
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown
read secretly

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 20770  
Source - Print  
  Author: Elizabeth Hamilton
  Editor: Miss Benger
  Title: Memoirs of the Late Mrs Elizabeth Hamilton with a Selection from her Correspondence
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1819
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 49-50
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Elizabeth Hamilton, Miss Benger (ed.), Memoirs of the Late Mrs Elizabeth Hamilton with a Selection from her Correspondence (London, 1819), p. 49-50, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=20770, accessed: 29 March 2024

Additional comments:

 

 

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