Evidence: | 'at ten o'clock yesterday evening little Jem Parsons (the cabin boy), and his friend the black terrier, came on deck, and sat themselves on a gun-carriage, to read by the light of the moon. I looked at the boy's book, (the terrier, I suppose, read over the other's shoulder,) and found that it was "The Sorrows of Werter". I asked who had lent him such a book, and whether it amused him? He said that it had been made a present to him, and so he had read it almost through, for he had got to Werter's dying; though, to be sure, he did not understand it all, nor like very much what he understood; for he thought the man a great fool for killing himself for love. I told him I thought that every man a great fool who killed himself for love or for any thing else: but he had no books but "The Sorrows of Werter"? - oh dear yes, he said, he had a great many more; but he had got "The Adventures of a Louse", which was a very curious book, indeed; and he had got besides "The Recess", and "Valentine and Orson", and "Roslin Castle", and a book of Prayers, just like the Bible; but he could not but say that he liked "The Adventures of a Louse" the best of any of them.' |
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Century: | 1800-1849 | ||||||||||
Date: | 11 Dec 1815 | ||||||||||
Country: | at sea | ||||||||||
Time: | evening: 10pm | ||||||||||
Place: | other location: ship travelling to Jamaica | ||||||||||
Type of Experience (Reader): |
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Type of Experience (Listener): |
|
Reader: | Jem Parsons |
Age | Child (0-17) |
Gender | Male |
Date of Birth | n/a |
Socio-economic group: | Labourer (non-agricultural) |
Occupation: | cabin boy |
Religion: | n/a |
Country of origin: | England? |
Country of experience: | at sea |
Listeners present if any: (e.g. family, servants,
friends, workmates) |
n/a |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Author: | Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe |
Title: | Sorrows of Young Werther |
Genre: | Fiction |
Form of Text: | Print: Book |
Publication details: | n/a |
Provenance: | owned |
Record ID: | 10129 | |
Source - | ||
Author: | Matthew Lewis | |
Editor: | n/a | |
Title: | Journal of a West India Proprietor, Kept During a Residence in The Island of Jamaica | |
Place of Publication: | Oxford | |
Date of Publication: | 1999 | |
Vol: | n/a | |
Page: | 20 | |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Citation: | Matthew Lewis, Journal of a West India Proprietor, Kept During a Residence in The Island of Jamaica (Oxford, 1999), p. 20, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=10129, accessed: 07 December 2023 |
Matthew Lewis chanced upon the boy reading the book as he went for a walk round the ship during the trip to Jamaica. |
Reading Experience Database version 2.0. Page updated: 27th Apr 2016 3:15pm (GMT)