Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 21093

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'[from an account by Dr Maxwell, an Irish london-based priest friend of Johnson] Speaking of Mr. Harte, Canon of Windsor, and writer of "The History of Gustavus Adolphus", he much commended him as a scholar, and a man of the must companionable talents he had ever known. He said, the defects in his history proceeded not from imbecility, but from foppery. He loved, he said, the old black letter books; they were rich in matter, though their style was inelegant; wonderfully so, considering how conversant the writers were with the best models of antiquity. Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy", he said, was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.'
Century: 1700-1799
Date: Until: 31 Dec 1770
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: city: London
   
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 Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 18 Sep 1709
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: writer
Religion: Anglican
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: [unknown]
Title: ['black letter', ie gothic text books - medieval to 16th c.]
Genre: Unknown
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 21093  
Source - Print  
  Author: James Boswell
  Editor: R.C. Chapman
  Title: Life of Johnson
  Place of Publication: Oxford
  Date of Publication: 1980
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 438
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: James Boswell, R.C. Chapman (ed.), Life of Johnson (Oxford, 1980), p. 438, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=21093, accessed: 24 April 2024

Additional comments:

Originally published 1791. Johnson's father had a black letter bible in J's childhood.

 

 

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