Evidence: | 'we first drew the curtains all round her four-post bed, so that it was quite dark inside; and then, having pulled them back again, we took off our shoes and all got into bed with her, while she read us a chapter of the current book... Aunt Etty was the best reader-aloud I have ever known. She could alter bits which she did not consider suitable, skip whole pages and episodes, and join the narrative up again with an invisible seam; or turn an unhappy ending into a happy one without anyone being able to guess at the liberties she had taken... After her death I found a book she had once read to us: "Don John" by Jean Ingelow. The story is about two changelings, a bad boy and a good one. By a series of accidents, nobody quite knows which boy belongs to which family. In the end it is proved that the good boy is the son of the bad parents, and vice versa. This was more than Aunt Etty's eugenic conscience could bear; and... she changed the entire sense of the book... none of us ever discovered the fraud... till, thirty years later, when I happened to find the book again'. |
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Century: | 1850-1899 | ||||||||||
Date: | unknown | ||||||||||
Country: | England | ||||||||||
Time: | night: In bed | ||||||||||
Place: | county: Kent specific address: Down House |
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Type of Experience (Reader): |
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Type of Experience (Listener): |
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Reader: | Henrietta Litchfield |
Age | Adult (18-100+) |
Gender | Female |
Date of Birth | 1843 |
Socio-economic group: | Gentry |
Occupation: | unknown |
Religion: | unknown |
Country of origin: | England |
Country of experience: | England |
Listeners present if any: (e.g. family, servants,
friends, workmates) |
Darwin children inc. Gwen (later Raverat) |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Author: | Jean Ingelow |
Title: | Don John |
Genre: | Fiction |
Form of Text: | Print: Book |
Publication details: | n/a |
Provenance: | unknown |
Record ID: | 6113 | |
Source - | ||
Author: | Gwen Raverat | |
Editor: | n/a | |
Title: | Period Piece | |
Place of Publication: | London | |
Date of Publication: | 1952 | |
Vol: | n/a | |
Page: | 145-6 | |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Citation: | Gwen Raverat, Period Piece (London, 1952), p. 145-6, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=6113, accessed: 25 April 2024 |
Reading Experience Database version 2.0. Page updated: 27th Apr 2016 3:15pm (GMT)