Record Number: 5984

---

Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Though Anna studied pious works almost constantly, she almost never commented in her diary on her religious reading ... Anna's daily examination of the scriptures or of a religious work was a private act of self scrutiny intended to strengthen her moral resolve and Christian faith... It was not a subject for polite conversation, like so much other material... In the 1790s she was still reading the sermons that she had first encountered twenty years earlier. In short, she conformed to the model of the isolated, absorbed, individual reader, cut off from the world by her immersion in the text.'

Century:

1700-1799

Date:

19 Feb

Country:

England

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:

Anna Larpent

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

1758

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Diplomat's daughter and civil servant's wife

Religion:

unknown

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

England

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

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

---

Text Being Read:

Author:

Title:

[sermons]

Genre:

Sermon, Other religious

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown

---

Source Information:

Record ID:

5984

Source:

Print

Author:

John Brewer

Editor:

James Raven

Title:

The practice and representation of reading in England, essay entitled 'Reconstructing the reader'

Place of Publication:

Cambridge

Date of Publication:

1996

Vol:

n/a

Page:

239

Additional Comments:

Editors James Raven, Helen Small and Naomi Tadmor. Anna notably read Tillotson's sermons.

Citation:

John Brewer, James Raven (ed.), The practice and representation of reading in England, essay entitled 'Reconstructing the reader' (Cambridge, 1996), p. 239, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/RED/record_details.php?id=5984, accessed: 24 September 2023

---

Additional Comments:

Brewer is basing his assertion on Larpent's diary, Huntington Museum, HM 31201