Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 17313

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'I have before me as I write a photo by Sir Aurel Stein showing the body of a man of Turfan buried fifteen centuries ago, and it is hard to belive that he is even dead. And the reason Sir Aurel suggests for this desiccation of Central Asia is, that not so much has the climate changed, as that in the past those areas subsisted in the main on the excess water given by the slow melting of the original ice-cap, since the actual snowfall must have been insufficient to produce glaciers of a size to give their requisite summer volume of water. And so it seems to me that that is to some extent the condition of Ladakh...'
Century: 1900-1945
Date: Between 1925 and 1928
Country: India - Ladakh, Western Tibet
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:Martin Louis Alan Gompertz ('Ganpat')
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 23 Feb 1886
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Military
Occupation: Officer in Indian Army
Religion: Roman Catholic
Country of origin: England
Country of experience: India - Ladakh, Western Tibet
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: Ganpat served in the Indian Army from 1904 - 1939 and wrote some 24 books and 19 magazine articles/stories

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Sir Aurel Stein
Title: unknown
Genre: Archaeology
Form of Text: Print: Unknown
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: owned

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 17313  
Source - Print  
  Author: Martin Louis Alan Gompertz
  Editor: n/a
  Title: Magic Ladakh: an intimate picture of a land of topsy-turvy customs and great natural beauty
  Place of Publication: London: Seeley, Service & Co Ltd
  Date of Publication: 1928
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 45
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Martin Louis Alan Gompertz, Magic Ladakh: an intimate picture of a land of topsy-turvy customs and great natural beauty (London: Seeley, Service & Co Ltd, 1928), p. 45, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=17313, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

Major Gompertz wrote most of his fiction under the pseudonym 'Ganpat'. This and his earlier travel book 'The Road to Lamaland: Impressions of a Journey to Western Thibet' (1926) give his proper name after his pseudonym. 'Ganpat' was interested in the archaeology and exploration of Ladakh, its terrain, history, peoples and their religion and customs. He was also interested in presenting his travel book with a certain 'weight' by referring to Stein, Moorcroft and others.

 

 

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