Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 4976

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'Barber John Paton remembered that the "Boys' Friend" "ran a serial which was an enormously exciting tale of Alba's oppression of the Netherlands, and gave as its source, 'Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic'". He borrowed it from the public library and, with guidance from a helpful adult, also read J.R. Green, Macaulay, Prescott, Grote, and even Mommsen's multi-volume "History of Rome" by age fourteen. "There must have been, of course, enormous gaps in my understanding of what I poured into the rag bag that was my mind, particularly from the bigger works," he conceded, "but at least I sensed the important thing, the immense sweep and variety and the continuity of the historical process".'
Century: 1850-1899
Date: Between 1 Jan 1890 and 31 Dec 1900
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: city: London
   
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:John Paton
Age Child (0-17)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 1886
Socio-economic group: Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder
Occupation: barber
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: n/a
Title: Boys' Friend
Genre: Fiction, History, Children's Lit, Ephemera
Form of Text: Print: Serial / periodical
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 4976  
Source - Print  
  Author: Jonathan Rose
  Editor: n/a
  Title: The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes
  Place of Publication: New Haven
  Date of Publication: 2001
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 368-9
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (New Haven, 2001), p. 368-9, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=4976, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

See John Paton, 'Proletarian Pilgrimage', pp. 45-6.

 

 

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