Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 10320

Reading Experience:

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.'
Century: 1800-1849
Date: Until: 11 Dec 1815
Country: n/a
Time: n/a
Place: other location: on a ship
   
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: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: n/a
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: [unknown]
Title: The adventures of a louse
Genre: Fiction
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: owned

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 10320  
Source - Print  
  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=10320, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

 

 

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