Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 19410

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'Allow me, Sir, to return you my best thanks for your Lyrical ballad, "The Triumph for Salamis", which I have just received. It [italics] looks [end italics] most tempting, and I mean to take it with me to Bolton Abbey, whither I am on the point of going. But independently of the intrinsic value of the poem, there is the great pleasure of receiving marks of approbation and sympathy from distant and unknown friends; (and such I may call you, may I not?) especially from one, first known to me through "Baby May" two or three years ago, but every poem of whose has made me feel to know and like him better and better.'
Century: 1800-1849, 1850-1899
Date: Until: 1 May 1850
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: city: Manchester
   
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:Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Female
Date of Birth 29 Sep 1810
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: clergyman's wife and writer
Religion: Unitarian
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: William Cox Bennett
Title: Baby May and Other Poems on Infants
Genre: Poetry
Form of Text: Unknown
Publication details: published as a book 1859 but other evidence suggests the letter is from 1850ish - maybe she had read an MS poem?
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 19410  
Source - Print  
  Author: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
  Editor: J.A.V. Chapple
  Title: Letters of Mrs Gaskell, The
  Place of Publication: Manchester
  Date of Publication: 1997
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 808
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, J.A.V. Chapple (ed.), Letters of Mrs Gaskell, The (Manchester, 1997), p. 808, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=19410, accessed: 20 April 2024

Additional comments:

Additional editor Arthur Pollard. Undated letter to an 'Unknown' recipient - presumably Benett himself. As the letter's address was one Gaskell vacated in early 1850, it must date from before then.

 

 

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