Record Number: 17655
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
'And yet I am going to send you a book that was written altogether in the spirit of that place. I send it however, because it is just one of those specimens of consummate polished perfection in that style, that I think you would do best to read at present: I mean Baudelaire?s "Petits Poemes". On second thoughts, I will not send it until I hear from you, in case you have it already. If you have it not, I shall send you mine, it has unfortunately been subjected to the outrages of an amateur expurgator, but the most of it is there, and I think you would do well to study it.'
Century:1850-1899
Date:Until: 31 Oct 1874
Country:unknown
Timen/a
Place:n/a
Type of Experience(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: Age:Adult (18-100+)
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:13 Nov 1850
Socio-Economic Group:Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation:Aspiring writer and intermittent law student
Religion:Church of Scotland (wavering)
Country of Origin:Scotland
Country of Experience:unknown
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:Petits poemes en prose
Genre:Poetry, Prose poems.
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication DetailsVol. 4 of the "Oeuvres Completes" 1869
Provenanceowned
Source Information:
Record ID:17655
Source:Robert Louis Stevenson
Editor:Bradford A. Booth
Title:The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879
Place of Publication:New Haven and London
Date of Publication:1994
Vol:2
Page:63
Additional Comments:
Letter 323, To Katharine de Mattos, [? October 1874]. Co-editor Ernest Mehew. The date in square brackets has been added by the editors.
Citation:
Robert Louis Stevenson, Bradford A. Booth (ed.), The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879 (New Haven and London, 1994), 2, p. 63, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/RED/record_details.php?id=17655, accessed: 16 April 2024
Additional Comments:
The ?place? RLS refers to has been identified earlier in the same letter (see ID=17649) as the countryside of ?the village of Hope-deferred? and of ?the river of the Shadow of Suicide?. Note 1 to p.63 reads: ?RLS?s copy (Vol. 4 of the "Oeuvres Compl?tes" 1869) is at Yale [= Yale University Library, (Beinecke Library)]. Pages 133-8 have been cut out. Katharine gave the book to Bob [Stevenson, her brother, RLS?s cousin], who refers to it in an undated letter of this period.? The 1869 edition was the first posthumous collection of Baudelaire?s works. Later, editors of the prose poems reverted to the more expressive working title sometimes used by Baudelaire when they were being published in periodicals: [italics] Le Spleen de Paris [end italics].
