Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 10005

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'With the most intense interest I have just finished your Book which does you credit as to the manner in which it is executed, and after the momentary pain in part which it excites in many a bosom, will live in despight [sic] of censure and be gratefully accepted by the Public as long as Lord Byron's name is remembered--yet as you have left to one who adored him a little legacy and as I feel secure the lines "remember thee-thou false to him then friend time"--were his--and as I have been very ill I am not likely to trouble any one much longer--you will I am sure grant me one favour--let me to you at least confide the truth of the past--you owe it to me--you will not I know refuse me [...] Still I love him [Byron]--witness the agony I experienced at his death & the tears your book has cost me. Yet, Sir, allow me to say, although you have unitentionally given me pain I had rather have experienced it than not have read your book. Parts of it are beautiful, and I can vouch for the truth of much as I read his own memoirs before Murray burnt them.'
Century: 1800-1849
Date: Between 1 Oct 1824 and 30 Nov 1824
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:Lady Caroline Lamb
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Female
Date of Birth 13 Nov 1785
Socio-economic group: Royalty / aristocracy
Occupation: socialite, novelist, inflential member of the Whig political elite
Religion: Christian
Country of origin: England
Country of experience: England
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n?e Ponsonby

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Thomas Medwin
Title: Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron
Genre: Poetry, Biography, Autobiog / Diary
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: Henry Colburn, 1824
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 10005  
Source - Print  
  Author: Lady Caroline Lamb (n?e Ponsonby)
  Editor: Paul Douglass
  Title: The Whole Disgraceful Truth: Selected Letters of Lady Caroline Lamb
  Place of Publication: New York
  Date of Publication: 2006
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 201-203
  Additional comments: Letter to Thomas Medwin November 1824.

Citation: Lady Caroline Lamb (n?e Ponsonby), Paul Douglass (ed.), The Whole Disgraceful Truth: Selected Letters of Lady Caroline Lamb (New York, 2006), n/a, p. 201-203, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=10005, accessed: 16 April 2024

Additional comments:

Lady Caroline's letter tries to correct many of the misconceptions about her relationship with Byron that Medwin's book had propagated. The lines she misquotes are from Byron's poem "Remember Thee", which was published in Medwin's book.

 

 

Reading Experience Database version 2.0.  Page updated: 27th Apr 2016  3:15pm (GMT)