Switch to English Switch to French

The Open University  |   Study at the OU  |   About the OU  |   Research at the OU  |   Search the OU

Listen to this page  |   Accessibility

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

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
  RED International Logo

RED Australia logo


RED Canada logo
RED Netherlands logo
RED New Zealand logo

Listings for Author:  

Anon.

 

Click here to select all entries:

 


  

Anon. : Homer Travestie; Being a new translation of that great poet (1720) OR A Burlesque Translation of Homer (3rd edn of same piece, 1770)

Byron's Ravenna Journal (4 January-27 February 1821), 11 January 1821, on visit to plain of Troy in 1810: ' ... I read "Homer Travestied" (the first twelve books), because [John Cam] Hobhouse and others bored me with their learned localities, and I love quizzing.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron      Print: Book

  

anon. : Arabian Nights, The

'music, "Arabian Nights", and Darwin.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes     Print: Book

  

anon. : Hebrew Migration from Egypt, The

'Read "Hebrew Migration" - an anonymous book, very well done - arguing that Mount Sinai is in Idumaea and is identical with Mount Hor'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud]      Print: Book

  

anon. : Prose Edda, The

'Finished Prose Edda, etc. Akkadians. Malthus.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud]      Print: Book

  

[anon.] : Thousand Nights and One Night, The

'By the age of ten he had gone through E.W. Lane's three-volume translation of "The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night", Scott's Waverley novels, Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass", the adventure stories of Captain Marryat, everything of Harrison Ainsworth, and other, now forgotten, works'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: William Somerset Maugham      Print: Book

  

anon. : La Princesse de Cleves

'Absorbed as always in books, Willie read seriously in both French and German literature. His favourites in French were the "Maximes" of La Rochefoucauld, "La Princesse de Cleves" (which inspired his play "Caesar's Wife"), the tragedies of Racine, the novels of Voltaire, Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le Noir" and "La Chartreuse de Parme", Balzac's "Pere Goriot", Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", the works of Anatole France, the exotic tales of Pierre Loti and the well-crafted stories of Maupassant'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham      Print: Book

  

Jean anon. : [tragedies]

'Absorbed as always in books, Willie read seriously in both French and German literature. His favourites in French were the "Maximes" of La Rochefoucauld, "La Princesse de Cleves" (which inspired his play "Caesar's Wife"), the tragedies of Racine, the novels of Voltaire, Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le Noir" and "La Chartreuse de Parme", Balzac's "Pere Goriot", Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", the works of Anatole France, the exotic tales of Pierre Loti and the well-crafted stories of Maupassant'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham      Print: Book

  

anon. : [review in the Quarterly Review Byron's Lara]

'I am glad you saw Lara; and am indebted for your account of it. I read the review of it in the Quarterly review?some time ago.' [there follow Carlyle's observations on Mitchell's account of the plot; apparently Carlyle has not yet read the poem]

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Daniel Owen-Madden [published anon.] : Ireland and its Rulers Since 1829

'I think "Ireland and its Leaders" worth reading and beg of you to tell me who wrote it if you happen to know, for you though you call yourself solitary live much more in the world than I do while I am in the Country'.

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

  

William Pitt Scargill [anon.] : Elizabeth Evanshaw

'I have received from you within these few months some very polite and liberal presents of new publications ; and though I was sorry you put yourself to any expense on my account, yet I was flattered by this mark of respect and good-will from gentlemen to whom I am personally unknown. I am quite sure, however, that you overlooked the purpose and tendency of a work called Elizabeth Evanshaw, or that you would not have sent it to a clergyman of the Established Church, or indeed to a clergyman of any church. [Smith then rebukes the publishers at length for producing irreligious books, including a translation of Voltaire, before going on to say that, nevertheless] I shall read all the works and tell you my opinion of them from time to time. I was very much pleased with the "Two Months in Ireland", but did not read the poetical part; the prosaic division of the work is very good'.

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

  

[anon.] : Three Months in Ireland. By an English Protestant

'I have received from you within these few months some very polite and liberal presents of new publications ; and though I was sorry you put yourself to any expense on my account, yet I was flattered by this mark of respect and good-will from gentlemen to whom I am personally unknown. I am quite sure, however, that you overlooked the purpose and tendency of a work called Elizabeth Evanshaw, or that you would not have sent it to a clergyman of the Established Church, or indeed to a clergyman of any church. [Smith then rebukes the publishers at length for producing irreligious books, including a translation of Voltaire, before going on to say that, nevertheless] I shall read all the works and tell you my opinion of them from time to time. I was very much pleased with the "Two Months in Ireland", but did not read the poetical part; the prosaic division of the work is very good'.

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

  

[anon.] : Memoirs of Lady Hamilton; With Illustrative Anecdotes of Many of her Friends and Distinguished Contemporaries

[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley] 'Posthumous Works. 3. Sorrows of Werter Don Roderick - by Southey Gibbons Decline & fall. x Paradise Regained x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2 x Lara New Arabian Nights 3 Corinna Fall of the Jesuits Rinaldo Rinaldini Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds Hermsprong Le diable boiteux Man as he is. Rokeby. Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin x Wordsworth's Poems x Spenser's Fairy Queen x Life of the Philipps x Fox's History of James II The Reflector Wieland. Fleetwood Don Carlos x Peter Wilkins Rousseau's Confessions. x Espriella's Letters from England Lenora - a poem Emile x Milton's Paradise Lost X Life of Lady Hamilton De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael 3 vols. of Barruel x Caliph Vathek Nouvelle Heloise x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia. Waverly Clarissa Harlowe Robertson's Hist. of america x Virgil xTale of Tub. x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing x Curse of Kehama x Madoc La Bible Expliquee Lives of Abelard and Heloise The New Testament Coleridge's Poems. 1st vol. Syteme de la Nature x Castle of Indolence Chattertons Poems. x Paradise Regained Don Carlos. x Lycidas. x St Leon Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud Burkes account of civil society x Excursion Pope's Homer's Illiad x Sallust Micromegas x Life of Chauser Canterbury Tales Peruvian letters. Voyages round the World Pluarch's lives. x 2 vols of Gibbon Ormond Hugh Trevor x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War Lewis's tales Castle of Udolpho Guy Mannering Charles XII by Voltaire Tales of the East'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin      

  

Robert Southey [anon.] : Letters from England; by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella . . . Translated from the Spanish

[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley - again, only those not mentioned in journal entries are indicated separately in the database] 'Posthumous Works. 3. Sorrows of Werter Don Roderick - by Southey Gibbons Decline & fall. x Paradise Regained x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2 x Lara New Arabian Nights 3 Corinna Fall of the Jesuits Rinaldo Rinaldini Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds Hermsprong Le diable boiteux Man as he is. Rokeby. Ovid's Metamo[r]phoses in Latin x Wordsworth's Poems x Spenser's Fairy Queen x Life of the Philipps x Fox's History of James II The Reflector Wieland. Fleetwood Don Carlos x Peter Wilkins Rousseau's Confessions. x Espriella's Letters from England Lenora - a poem Emile x Milton's Paradise Lost X Life of Lady Hamilton De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael 3 vols. of Barruel x Caliph Vathek Nouvelle Heloise x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia. Waverly Clarissa Harlowe Robertson's Hist. of america x Virgil xTale of Tub. x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing x Curse of Kehama x Madoc La Bible Expliquee Lives of Abelard and Heloise The New Testament Coleridge's Poems. 1st vol. Syteme de la Nature x Castle of Indolence Chattertons Poems. x Paradise Regained Don Carlos. x Lycidas. x St Leon Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud Burkes account of civil society x Excursion Pope's Homer's Illiad x Sallust Micromegas x Life of Chauser Canterbury Tales Peruvian letters. Voyages round the World Pluarch's lives. x 2 vols of Gibbon Ormond Hugh Trevor x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War Lewis's tales Castle of Udolpho Guy Mannering Charles XII by Voltaire Tales of the East'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

[anon.] : Memoirs of Lady Hamilton; With Illustrative Anecdotes of Many of her Friends and Distinguished Contemporaries

[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley - again, only those not mentioned in journal entries are indicated separately in the database] 'Posthumous Works. 3. Sorrows of Werter Don Roderick - by Southey Gibbons Decline & fall. x Paradise Regained x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2 x Lara New Arabian Nights 3 Corinna Fall of the Jesuits Rinaldo Rinaldini Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds Hermsprong Le diable boiteux Man as he is. Rokeby. Ovid's Metamo[r]phoses in Latin x Wordsworth's Poems x Spenser's Fairy Queen x Life of the Philipps x Fox's History of James II The Reflector Wieland. Fleetwood Don Carlos x Peter Wilkins Rousseau's Confessions. x Espriella's Letters from England Lenora - a poem Emile x Milton's Paradise Lost X Life of Lady Hamilton De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael 3 vols. of Barruel x Caliph Vathek Nouvelle Heloise x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia. Waverly Clarissa Harlowe Robertson's Hist. of america x Virgil xTale of Tub. x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing x Curse of Kehama x Madoc La Bible Expliquee Lives of Abelard and Heloise The New Testament Coleridge's Poems. 1st vol. Syteme de la Nature x Castle of Indolence Chattertons Poems. x Paradise Regained Don Carlos. x Lycidas. x St Leon Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud Burkes account of civil society x Excursion Pope's Homer's Illiad x Sallust Micromegas x Life of Chauser Canterbury Tales Peruvian letters. Voyages round the World Pluarch's lives. x 2 vols of Gibbon Ormond Hugh Trevor x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War Lewis's tales Castle of Udolpho Guy Mannering Charles XII by Voltaire Tales of the East'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Edmund Burke [anon.] : A Vindication of Natural Society . . . In a letter to Lord ****

[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley - again, only those not mentioned in journal entries are indicated separately in the database] 'Posthumous Works. 3. Sorrows of Werter Don Roderick - by Southey Gibbons Decline & fall. x Paradise Regained x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2 x Lara New Arabian Nights 3 Corinna Fall of the Jesuits Rinaldo Rinaldini Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds Hermsprong Le diable boiteux Man as he is. Rokeby. Ovid's Metamo[r]phoses in Latin x Wordsworth's Poems x Spenser's Fairy Queen x Life of the Philipps x Fox's History of James II The Reflector Wieland. Fleetwood Don Carlos x Peter Wilkins Rousseau's Confessions. x Espriella's Letters from England Lenora - a poem Emile x Milton's Paradise Lost X Life of Lady Hamilton De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael 3 vols. of Barruel x Caliph Vathek Nouvelle Heloise x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia. Waverly Clarissa Harlowe Robertson's Hist. of america x Virgil xTale of Tub. x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing x Curse of Kehama x Madoc La Bible Expliquee Lives of Abelard and Heloise The New Testament Coleridge's Poems. 1st vol. Syteme de la Nature x Castle of Indolence Chattertons Poems. x Paradise Regained Don Carlos. x Lycidas. x St Leon Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud Burkes account of civil society x Excursion Pope's Homer's Illiad x Sallust Micromegas x Life of Chauser Canterbury Tales Peruvian letters. Voyages round the World Pluarch's lives. x 2 vols of Gibbon Ormond Hugh Trevor x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War Lewis's tales Castle of Udolpho Guy Mannering Charles XII by Voltaire Tales of the East'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Caroline Lamb (anon.) : Glenarvon

'Read Clarendon - finish the life of Holcroft - read Glenarvon in the evening'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin      Print: Book

  

Caroline Lamb (anon.) : Glenarvon

'Not well - read Glenarvon all day and finish it'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin      Print: Book

  

Maria Edgeworth (anon.) : Castle Rackrent, an Hibernian tale

'read Curt and Castle Rackrent aloud. S. finishes Castle Rackrent in the evening'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin      Print: Book

  

Maria Edgeworth (anon.) : Castle Rackrent, an Hibernian tale

'read Curt and Castle Rackrent aloud. S. finishes Castle Rackrent in the evening'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

[anon.] : Rhoda

'I am confined Tuesday 2nd. Read Rhoda - Pastors Fire Side - Missionary - Wild Irish Girls - The Anaconda. Glenarvon - 1st Vol Percy's Northern antiquities'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

anon. : Speculum humanae Salvationis

'Oct. 24. Tuesday. We visited the King's library.—I saw the "Speculum humanae Salvationis", rudely printed with ink, sometimes pale, sometimes black; part supposed to be with wooden types, and part with pages cut in boards.—The Bible, supposed to be older than that of Mentz, in 62 [1462]; it has no date, it is supposed to have been printed with wooden types.—I am in doubt; the print is large and fair, in two folios.—Another book was shewn me, supposed to have been printed with wooden types;—I think, "Durandi Sanctuarium in 58 [1458]. This is inferred from the difference of form sometimes seen in the same letter, which might be struck with different puncheons.—The regular similitude of most letters proves better that they are metal.—I saw nothing but the "Speculum" which I had not seen, I think, before'.

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      Print: Book

  

anon. : [Life of Thomson, prefixed to an edition of 'The Seasons']

'[ letter from Boswell to Johnson, responding to the latter's contention that there existed no adequate 'Life' of Thomson] Since I received your letter I have read his [Thomson's] "Life", published under the name of Cibber, but as you told me, really written by a Mr. Shiels; that written by Dr. Murdoch; one prefixed to an edition of the "Seasons", published at Edinburgh, which is compounded of both, with the addition of an anecdote of Quin's relieving Thomson from prison; the abridgement of Murdoch's account of him, in the "Biographia Britannica", and another abridgement of it in the "Biographical Dictionary", enriched with Dr. Joseph Warton's critical panegyrick on the "Seasons" in his "Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope": from all these it appears to me that we have a pretty full account of this poet.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell      Print: Book

  

Anon. : ife and Memoirs of Mr Ephraim Tristram Bates, commonly called Corporal Bates, a broken-hearted Soldier

'the famous Tristram Shandy itself is not absolutely original: for when I was at Derby in the Summer of 1774 I strolled by mere chance into a Bookseller's Shop, where however I could find nothing to tempt Curiosity but a strange Book about Corporal Bates, which I bought & read for want of better Sport, and found it to be the very Novel from which Sterne took his first Idea: the Character of Uncle Toby, the Behaviour of Coporal Trim, even the name of Tristram itself seems to be borrowed from this stupid History of Corporal Bates forsooth'.

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale      Print: Book

  

[anon.] : Journal Amoureux

'Louisa and I began this day to read French. Our book was a little light piece of French gallantry entitled 'Journal Amoureux'. She pronounced best and I translated best. Between us we did very well'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell and Louisa     Print: Book

  

anon. : J'y suis, J'y reste

'After Lights Out, Bayley reads a poem - anonymous. "J'y suis, j'y reste" about the war in Malaya. It is good and comprehensive. I disagree with the part, which mentions rape and looting by our troops. I have never heard of rape by them, but looting - ye gods - they were past masters'

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Kitching      

  

Anon. Traditional : A Conservative Song

From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. Transcription of 'A Conservative Song, to the tune of "There's nae luck about the House"', beginning 'How happy we, the sun and moon/ Are placed so very high...' At the end of the song is written "Essex Standard, Feb. 2 1833"

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group:      Print: Newspaper

  

anon. : Everyman

'The Secretary then read a paper upon English Miracle & Morality Plays. He described the Miracle Cycle at York with some illustrative readings from one or two of the earlier episodes. Then briefly traced the growth of the religious drama through the stages of its association with the Liturgy to its divorce from the Church & its elaboration by the city guilds. The development of Moralities was referred to & Mrs Unwin gave a reading from 'Everyman'.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Ursula Unwin      Print: Book

  

anon. : York Miracle Cycle

'The Secretary then read a paper upon English Miracle & Morality Plays. He described the Miracle Cycle at York with some illustrative readings from one or two of the earlier episodes. Then briefly traced the growth of the religious drama through the stages of its association with the Liturgy to its divorce from the Church & its elaboration by the city guilds. The development of Moralities was referred to & Mrs Unwin gave a reading from 'Everyman'.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Ernest E. Unwin      Print: Book

  

Anon. : Migrations

'The following miscellaneous programme was then gone through. This change in the subject was caused by the imposibility of getting cheap copies of The Dynasts. 1. Pianoforte solo. Selection from Debusy [sic] Miss Bowman Smith 2. Reading. Modern Froissart Chronicles Mrs W.H. Smith 3. Reading. Migrations. Anon. Contrib. from Punch by Alfred Rawlings 4. Recitation. In a Gondola (Browning) Miss Cole 5. Song. 2 French Bergerettes. Mrs Unwin 6. Essay. 'The Pious Atrocity' R.B. Graham 7. Reading. Wedding Presents (Punch) Mrs Reynolds 8. Song. My dear Soul. Mrs Robson 9. Reading 'How the Camel got his Hump' W.H. Smith 10. Song. The Camel's hump. E.E. Unwin 11. Reading. The Man of the Evening (A.A. Milne Punch) Miss R. Wallis 12. Song. Hebrides Galley Song. Miss Bowman Smith 13. Reading. Arms of Wipplecrack S.A. Reynolds 14. Reading. Joints in the Armour. E.V. Lucas. H.M. Wallis 15. Song-Chant Folk Song [ditto] 16. Essay. 'Bad morality & bad art' R.H. Robson 17. Song. Winter. Miss Bowman Smith 18. Essay 'Etaples & the air raids' H.R. Smith 19. Recitation. These new fangled ways. E.E. Unwin 20. Song. Goodnight. Mrs Robson'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings      Print: Serial / periodical

  

[anon. member of XII Book Club] : Scandalous Affair, A

'Various anonymous essays by members of the Club were then read with the following titles and at the conclusion of the meeting whilst the authorship of some was quickly acclaimed others proved very difficult to locate. Some thoughts on Racing attributed to R. Wallis One Generation & the next or Jobson on False Freedom C.E. Stansfield Intimations of Immortality R.H. Robson The Lady of the Marsh Mrs R.B. Graham If Christianity had Won R.B. Graham The Revolt of the Innocents Geo Burrow Thoughts on the Construction of Cathedrals H.M. Wallis Revenge or Justice C Evans Five minutes Thoughts upon present Condition H.M. Wallis A Scandalous Affair [illegible symbol]'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: members of XII Book Club     Manuscript: Unknown

 

Click here to select all entries:

 

   
   
Green Turtle Web Design