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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: 5265


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'George Howell, bricklayer and trade unionist..."read promiscuously. How could it be otherwise? I had no real guide, was obliged to feel my way into light. Yet perhaps there was a guidance, although indefinite and without distinctive aim". Howell groped his way through literature "on the principle that one poet's works suggested another, or the criticisms on one led to comparisons with another. Thus: Milton - Shakespeare; Pope-Dryden; Byron-Shelley; Burns-Scott; Coleridge-Wordsworth and Southey, and later on Spenser-Chaucer, Bryant-Longfellow, and so on". By following these intertextual links, autodidacts could reconstruct the literary canon on their own'.

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

unknown

Country:

n/a

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

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:

George Howell

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

n/a

Socio-Economic Group:

Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder

Occupation:

bricklayer and trade unionist

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

n/a

Country of Experience:

n/a

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

n/a


Additional Comments:

n/a



Text Being Read:

Author:

William Cullen Bryant

Title:

n/a

Genre:

Poetry

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown


Source Information:

Record ID:

5265

Source:

Print

Author:

Jonathan Rose

Editor:

n/a

Title:

The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes

Place of Publication:

New Haven

Date of Publication:

2001

Vol:

n/a

Page:

375

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (New Haven, 2001), p. 375, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/RED/record_details.php?id=5265, accessed: 28 March 2024


Additional Comments:

See George Howell, draft autobiography, vol. B/b/4, pp.3-5 - no further ref traceable in Rose notes

   
   
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