Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 24901

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'[...] the gratuitous atrocity of, say, "Ivan Illyitch"[sic] or the monstous stupidity of such a thing as "The Kreutzer Sonata" for instance; where an obvious degenerate not worth looking at twice, totally unfitted not only for married life but for any sort of life is presented as a sympathetic victim of some sort of sacred truth that is supposed to live within him.'
Century: 1900-1945
Date: Between 1902 and 1 Sep 1908
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: n/a
   
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:Joseph Conrad
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 3 Dec 1857
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: Master mariner and author
Religion: originally Polish Catholic, by now agnostic/atheist
Country of origin: Poland
Country of experience: England
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Leo Tolstoy
Title: The Death of Ivan Illyich and other stories
Genre: Fiction
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: probaby Constance Garnett's translation published by Heinemann 1902; but see also additional comments.
Provenance: owned
if Garnett's translation then almost certainly a gift from the translator

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 24901  
Source - Print  
  Author: Joseph Conrad
  Editor: Karl Frederick R. and Laurence Davies
  Title: The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad Volume 4 1908-1911
  Place of Publication: Cambridge
  Date of Publication: 1990
  Vol: 4
  Page: 116
  Additional comments: Letter from Joseph Conrad to John Galsworthy dated 2-3 September, Someries.

Citation: Joseph Conrad, Karl Frederick R. and Laurence Davies (ed.), The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad Volume 4 1908-1911 (Cambridge, 1990), 4, p. 116, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=24901, accessed: 29 March 2024

Additional comments:

That Conrad was referring to Garnett's translation is speculative but likely. It is not apparent to which version of the 'Kreutzer Sonata' Conrad is referring as this work was not part of the collection cited above. Constance Garnett did not translate this work but there is a contemporary translation by Leo Wiener published by J.M. Dent in 1904 which includes both 'Ivan Illyich' and 'The Kreutzer Sonata'.

 

 

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