Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 20134

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'My dear Henley, Sketches III line 11. More laughter comes from them than moan. IV As a whole. VII Both quatrains. VIII line 2. Extemporising a becoming gloom. IX Well, I don’t like it. Portraits I The sestett[sic] is not up to the mark, I think, but I don’t press this. IV Is a little broken, and the phrasing is a little imbecile. VII I don’t like. IX The first quatrain, and the words "does not feel his place" in the second. There is positively all I find….'
Century: 1850-1899
Date: Between 1 May 1875 and 31 May 1875
Country: Scotland
Time: n/a
Place: city: Edinburgh
county: Lothian
specific address: Swanston Cottage, Lothianburn, Edinburgh
   
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:Robert Louis Stevenson
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 13 Nov 1850
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: Aspiring writer and intermittent law student
Religion: Uncommitted
Country of origin: Scotland
Country of experience: Scotland
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: William Ernest Henley
Title: Hospital Outlines: Sketches and Portraits
Genre: Poetry
Form of Text: Print: Probably proof.
Publication details: 1875, Cornhill Magazine.
Provenance: borrowed (other)
Probably a proof copy to be returned (with the letter?) to the poet.

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 20134  
Source - Print  
  Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
  Editor: Bradford A. Booth
  Title: The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July1879
  Place of Publication: New Haven and London
  Date of Publication: 1994
  Vol: 2
  Page: 137
  Additional comments: Letter 390, To W.E. Henley, [May 1875], Swanston Cottage. Co-editor Ernest Mehew. The date in square brackets has been added by the editors.

Citation: Robert Louis Stevenson, Bradford A. Booth (ed.), The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July1879 (New Haven and London, 1994), 2, p. 137, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=20134, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

Editors’ Note 1 to the heading “Sketches” on p. 137 reads: “RLS is commenting on Henley’s ‘Hospital Outlines’ but since these were accepted by the "Cornhill" in April and RLS did not go to Swanston until May, he is presumably commenting on the proof.” Editors’ Note 2 to the end of the text given for Letter 390 reads: “The MS was pasted down and framed by Lord Guthrie, and the rest cannot be read.”

 

 

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