Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 21471

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
Alfred Tennyson to John Forster, 29 March 1854: 'I understand from Archibald Peel that you are aggrieved at my not writing to you [...] A reason for my not writing much is the bad condition of my right eye which quite suddenly came on as I was reading or trying to read small Persian text. You know perhaps how very minute in some of those Eastern tongues are the differences of letters: a little dot more or less: in a moment, after a three hours' hanging over this scratchy text, my right eye became filled with great masses of floating blackness, and the other eye similarly affected tho' not so badly. I am in a great fear about them, and think of coming up to town about them'.
Century: 1850-1899
Date: Between 1 Jan 1854 and 29 Mar 1854
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: county: Isle of Wight
specific address: Farringford
   
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:Alfred Tennyson
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 6 Aug 1809
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: 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:
Title: Persian grammar
Genre: Textbook / self-education, Reference / General works
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 21471  
Source - Print  
  Author: Hallam Tennyson
  Editor: n/a
  Title: Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1897
  Vol: 1
  Page: 373
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son (London, 1897), 1, p. 373, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=21471, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

Source author notes on p.374: 'my father [...] had hurt his eyes by poring over a small-printed Persian Grammar [...] this with Hafiz and other Persian books had to be hidden away, for he had "seen the Persian letters stalking like giants round the walls of his room."'

 

 

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