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

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Record Number: 6006


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'[Ethel] Mannin was firmly rooted in the autodidact tradition. In her father's library she enjoyed Gissing and Wells, "Adam Bede" and "The Cloister and the Hearth". A Clapham letter-sorter, he collected Nelson's Sevenpenny Classics, which she applauded as "a great boon to poor people"... By age fifteen she was quoting Wilde, Dr Johnson, Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, Milton, Elizabeth Browning, Omar Khayyam, Anatole France, Emily Bronte, Shaw, Hazlitt, Stevenson, W.E. Henley, and Schopenhauer in her commonplace book...Except "Orlando", she read nothing of Virginia Woolf, whom she found "too intellectual, too subtle and complicated and remote from reality"...Mannin made sure to read "Ulysses" (or at least the final chapter) and she admired Gertrude Stein'.

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

unknown

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

city: London, Clapham

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:

Ethel Mannin

Age:

Child (0-17)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

1900

Socio-Economic Group:

Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder

Occupation:

letter-sorter's daughter, later novelist

Religion:

n/a

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:

George Gissing

Title:

[unknown]

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

Nelson's Sevenpenny Classics edition

Provenance

owned


Source Information:

Record ID:

6006

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:

445-6

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (New Haven, 2001), p. 445-6, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/RED/record_details.php?id=6006, accessed: 28 March 2024


Additional Comments:

See Ethel Manning 'Young in the Twenties' (London,1971) or 'Confessions'

   
   
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