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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Listings for Author:  

Tom

 

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Tom Paine : The Rights of Man

"As an errand-boy I had, of course, many hardships to undergo, and to bear with much tyranny; and that led me into reasoning upon men and things, the causes of misery, the anomalies of our societary state, politics &tc., and the circle of my being rapidly out-surged. New power came to me with all that I saw and thought and read. I studied political works, - such as Paine, Volney, Howitt, Louis Blanc, &tc, which gave me another element to mould into my verse, though I am convinced that a poet must sacrifice much if he write party-political poetry."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Massey      Print: Book

  

Tom Paine : Age of Reason

'As the trade we did... was not sufficient to require my continual attention, I found time to read a good many of the books with which the shelves were stored. The "Age of Reason" was among the first; and, in order that both sides of the question might be fairly presented to my mind, was immediately followed by Bishop Watson's "Apology for the Bible". I should have read neither. What mischief the infidel writer effected the Bishop failed to repair.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Manby Smith      Print: Book

  

Tom Paine : [unknown]

William McCarty, convicted for burglary, sentenced to seven years' transportation: 'As regards my religious character, before I came to this place I used to boast of my infidelity. I read nearly all Tom Paine's works and used to sport at religion; but ever since I heard you preach, I have thought very differently about myself and of God, and I hope to lead a very reverse course of life.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William McCarty      Print: Book

  

Tom Paine : Age of Reason

Extract from chaplain's [John Field] journal, 18 Jul 1844: 'Found that a prisoner committed yesterday was an avowed infidel who had read attentively Paine's "Age of Reason". Conversed with him for some time, and then lent him Bishop Watson's "Apology for the Bible". I felt thankful that under the present system of discipline such characters can no longer spread their pernicious opinions amongst the other prisoners.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: H.C.      Print: Book

  

Tom Hopkinson : [diary notebook]

'I have read Tom's [note]book. I had no right to perhaps, without telling him but he has read mine and I did. It gave me a real shock - perhaps because it so confirmed my own picture of what happened and which he so strenuously denied [...] Of course it is painful to me to read of all his natural, happy ecstasy over Frances, because it shows me so clearly what I have missed in him'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Antonia White      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Tom Hopkinson : I have been Drowned

'Every day I become more aware of the extraordinary interpenetration of people's lives. I think of the share Emily had in Djuna's book ['Nightwood'], of the share Emily will have in mine if I can write it, of the small share I have in hers and may have in Siepmann's, of the way I saw something in Tom's drowning story ['I have been Drowned'] of which he was unaware and which Emily brought to flower so that now he has written a quite extraordinary story, beyond anything he has done before and which gave me the same feeling of strangeness, delight, almost awe that Emily's two last poems, "Melville" and "The Creation" gave me'.

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Antonia White      

  

Tom Hopkinson : Man Below, The

'While admiring Tom's book ['The Man Below', 1939] I have great pleasure in finding its weaknesses and though I cannot help admitting there are passages in it far beyond my own powers, I feel resentful of this and that in some way such passages must be due to my influence or to Tom's having stolen them from me. Yet even in his earliest, crudest work... there are indications of such descriptive powers.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Antonia White      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Tom  : Eyes of Adonis

'[Tom, an Oxford contemporary] Following an elite fashion among moneyed aesthetes, he published, privately, a slim volume of poems on thick hand-made paper - "Eyes of Adonis". Some of the poems were little more than doggerel, and he was hurt to find that he could not even [italics] give [end italics] the little books away'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Ralph Glasser      Print: Book

  

Tom Hughes : Alfred the Great

From Emily Tennyson's Journal, 1869: 'Sept. 13th. [...] Read the "Idylls" through in their proper sequence during these months, also Tom Hughes' Alfred the Great, Pressense's Life of Christ, Martineau's Endeavours After a Christian Life, and Lecky's European Morals.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Emily Tennyson      Print: Book

  

Tom Paine : The Rights of Man. Part the Second

Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 21 October 1792: 'Now I am upon the republic system I must tell you that Bristol seems preparing for it. A pamphlet proposes the abolition of the corporation as unconstitutional & arbitrary & hints the same to all other corporate towns it is very well written — these little attacks sap the foundations of the citadel. If France models a republic & enjoys tranquillity who knows but Europe may become one great republic & Man be free of the whole? You see I use Paines words. But politics must not make us quarrel. You know the fable of the oak & the reed. I have been the oak & was pulled up by the roots & cast up. Let me try to be the reed.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      

  

Tomás de Iriarte : Fábulas Literarias

Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, December 1795, 'I read the two languages [Spanish and Portuguese] with facility, & am now abridging the Angelica of Lope de Vega & extracting from it — the same with a most curious Portuguese poem — all this you will see if I escape that horrible Bay of Biscay. in the interim take these two fables from the Spanish of Yriarte'. [here follow some verses beginning 'Judge gentle reader as you will...']

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

Tom Scott : On my 21st Birthday

'Tom Scott came in, bringing a typed copy of his lengthy poem, "On my 21st Birthday". Much of this modern verse is unintelligible to me - and, naturally, much of this particular sample of it is too intimate in incident for general understanding. Scott also brought a couple of poems by his pal George Fraser. There is a ninetyish quality about the verse of these young moderns - but with a difference; the self-conscious daring is not in the carnality but in the technique: this gives their poetry a hardness which cuts through sentimentality but also shears away something of humankindness.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: William Soutar      Manuscript: Sheet

  

Tom Scott : [poems]

'At half past one Tom Scott strode in, having come home from West Africa: very little change in him after his two years in the tropics. Brought some poems for me to look over with a critical eye. Much experimentation in his verse in English; his solitary poem in Scots, and his first, exhibited the chief fault of all the younger school: many of the words haven't passed through the blood and imagination; they remain counters and are often set into the wrong context.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: William Soutar      Manuscript: Unknown

 

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