Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 19170

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20-21 January 1845: 'I put down "Modeste Mignon" to take up your letter. I read my French abomination at breakfast & dinner & tea time, .. so as to forget myself & be delighted to find that I have eaten a little more than usual in my trance (deeper than mesmeric) & happy state of physical unconsciousness [...] And your first words [in letter] [...] are still of Mignon, Mignon. It is a decided case of flint to flint -- & of electricity by coincidence. 'Well -- and I am delighted with the book just as you are [...] because charmed beyond the point of pleasure produced by mere artistic power in the writer. The truth is [...] that if I were to write my own autobiography, or rather, (much rather), if Balzac were to write it for me, he could not veritably have made it different from what he has written of Modeste. The ideal life of my youth was just [italics]that[end italics], .. line for line [goes on to comment further on text] [...] And that "satiete par la pensee."! -- [italics]There[end italics], lies the test of the morbidity -- for it is morbid -- it is dangerous! & worse romances than poor Modests's is likely to be (I have only read a third of the book) might come of it [comments further on own and Mitford's responses to text]'.
Century: 1800-1849
Date: Between 1 Jan 1845 and 20 Jan 1845
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:Mary Russell Mitford
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Female
Date of Birth 1787
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: Writer
Religion: Anglican
Country of origin: England
Country of experience: England
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Honore de Balzac
Title: Modeste Mignon
Genre: Fiction
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 19170  
Source - Print  
  Author: n/a
  Editor: Philip Kelley and Scott Lewis
  Title: The Brownings' Correspondence
  Place of Publication: Winfield
  Date of Publication: 1992
  Vol: 10
  Page: 31-32
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Philip Kelley and Scott Lewis (ed.), The Brownings' Correspondence (Winfield, 1992), 10, p. 31-32, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=19170, accessed: 29 March 2024

Additional comments:

 

 

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