Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 7305

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'At the corner of Hanging Bridge, near Old Churchyard, was a bookshop kept by one Swindells, a printer. In the spacious windows of this shop? were exhibited numerous songs, ballads, tales, and other publications, with horrid and awful-looking woodcuts at the head; which publications, with their cuts, had a strong command of my attention. Every farthing I could scrape together was now spent in purchasing "Histories of Jack the Giant Killer", "Saint George and the Dragon", "Tom Hickathrift", "Jack and the Bean Stalk", "History of the Seven Champions", tale of "Fair Rosamond", "History of Friar Bacon", "Account of the Lancashire Witches", "The Witches of the Woodlands", and such like romances; whilst my ? collections embraced but few pieces besides "Robin Hood?s Songs", and "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". Of all these tales and ballads I was soon to master, and they formed the subjects of many a long study to me, and of many a wonder-creating story for my acquaintance both at the workhouse and elsewhere. For my part I implicitly believed them all, and when told by my father or others that they were "trash" and "nonsense", and "could not be true", I innocently enough, contrasted their probability with that of other wondrous things which I read in books that "it were a sin to disbelieve".'
Century: 1700-1799, 1800-1849
Date: unknown
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: city: Middleton
county: Lancashire
   
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:Samuel Bamford
Age Child (0-17)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 28 Feb 1788
Socio-economic group: Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder
Occupation: son of muslin weaver and part-time teacher
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: anon
Title: Tom Hickathrift
Genre: Fiction, Children's Lit, Ephemera
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: chapbook
Provenance: owned

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 7305  
Source - Print  
  Author: Samuel Bamford
  Editor: n/a
  Title: Early Days
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1849
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 90-1
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Samuel Bamford, Early Days (London, 1849), p. 90-1, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=7305, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

 

 

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