Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 24140

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 14-18 October 1793: 'In the interim you shall have the remarks that occurrd upon reading Sir Launcelot Greaves on the road. Broad coarse humour seems to be the chief excellence of Smollet incidents almost too gross to please & too strange to be probable happen at every inn his heroes stop at & we are sure to find the sailors dialect & the clowns broad Scotch or broad Yorkshire in the place of humour. When he gets upon those subjects which perhaps none but Rousseau knew how to treat he rhapsodizes about charms angels & Hymens & thinks passion & nonsense mean the same. Some strange discovery of birth comes in at the end & all the dramatis personæ are tacked together at the altar. Yet with all these faults you are not soon tired of Smollets novels. They insensibly lead you on & if they do not come near the heart certainly play round the head. Humphrey Clinker strikes me as his best — the characters are less outrè & of course more natural. perhaps the epistolary form of it kept him in some bounds.'
Century: 1700-1799
Date: Between 14 Oct 1793 and 18 Oct 1793
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: other location: on the road
   
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 Southey
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 12 Aug 1774
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: Writer
Religion: n/a
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: Tobias Smollett
Title: The Adventures of Sir Lancelot Greaves
Genre: Fiction
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: owned

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 24140  
Source - Manuscript Other
  Author: "The Collected Letters of Robert Southey," Romantic Circles Electronic Edition, Letter 60. http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/southey_letters. Accessed 21 April 2009. ,

Citation: "The Collected Letters of Robert Southey," Romantic Circles Electronic Edition, Letter 60. http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/southey_letters. Accessed 21 April 2009. , http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=24140, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

 

 

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