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

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
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Record Number: 19792


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 28 April 1907: 'Today my head is whirring with slight fever. Since I wrote that I have for the first time read The Competition Wallah. It is extraordinary; it might be the Northern Province in 1907 instead of Bengal in the sixties.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

28 Apr 1907

Country:

Ceylon

Time

n/a

Place:

county: Jaffna (province)

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:

Leonard Woolf

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

25 Nov 1880

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Colonial civil servant

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

Ceylon

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a


Additional Comments:

n/a



Text Being Read:

Author:

Sir George Otto Trevelyan

Title:

The Competition Wallah

Genre:

Geography / Travel, Politics, ?fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

1868

Provenance

unknown


Source Information:

Record ID:

19792

Source:

Print

Author:

n/a

Editor:

Frederic Spotts

Title:

Letters of Leonard Woolf

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1990

Vol:

n/a

Page:

127

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Frederic Spotts (ed.), Letters of Leonard Woolf (London, 1990), p. 127, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/RED/record_details.php?id=19792, accessed: 28 March 2024


Additional Comments:

Source ed. explains at p.127 n.2 that 'The term competition wallah is an Anglo-Indian colloquialism referring to persons admitted to the Indian Civil Service by competitive examination rather than through family or political connections.'

   
   
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