Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 4424

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
I suppose I had read Hume's England when I wrote last; and I need not repeat my opinion of it. My perusal of the continuation - eight volumes, of history as it is called, by Tobias Smollett MD and others was a much harder and more unprofitable task. Next I read Gibbon's decline and fall of the Roman empire - a work of immense research and splendid execution.
Century: 1800-1849
Date: Between 1 Nov 1817 and 15 Feb 1818
Country: Scotland
Time: n/a
Place: city: Kirkcaldy (probably)
   
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:Thomas Carlyle
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 4 Dec 1795
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: Writer / Academic
Religion: Lapsed Calvinist
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: Edward Gibbon
Title: Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire
Genre: History
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: Published between 1737 and 1794
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 4424  
Source - Print  
  Author: Thomas Carlyle
  Editor: C R Sanders
  Title: The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle
  Place of Publication: Durham, South Carolina
  Date of Publication: 1970
  Vol: 1
  Page: 120
  Additional comments: Taken from letter from Carlyle to Robert Mitchell, dated 16th February 1818, written at Kirkcaldy. Pages 118-122 in this edition.

Citation: Thomas Carlyle, C R Sanders (ed.), The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle (Durham, South Carolina, 1970), 1, p. 120, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=4424, accessed: 20 April 2024

Additional comments:

See RED ref 2930 for earlier reference to this work in letter dated 19th November 1817. Dates of reading experience are estimate based on the fact that in the earlier letter he has read one volume of the work. He does not say exactly when or where he reads it.

 

 

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