Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 8869

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'on his eighth birthday, 27 February 1920, an ox-cart drew up outside Everleas Lodge with a present for him - a huge parcel of books. His father had bought him a complete set of Dickens which had belonged to a recently expired tea-planter. Durrell claimed later that he never got beyond the Pickwick Papers (sometimes he said that he got through about ten of them), but Dickens gave him a vision of merrie England... supplemented later by reading Thackeray and R.S. Surtees. In Surtees' convivial tales of the hunting, shooting, sporting Mr Jorrocks and his pursuitful adventures, there was something ruddy, jolly and rumbustious, which appealed to the perky youngster'.
Century: 1900-1945
Date: Between 27 Feb 1920 and 31 Dec 1930
Country: India
Time: n/a
Place: city: Darjeeling
specific address: Jesuit College of St Joseph at North Point
   
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:Lawrence Durrell
Age Child (0-17)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 27 Feb 1912
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: later writer; engineer's son
Religion: unknown
Country of origin: Britain / India (Parents English and Irish but Indian born)
Country of experience: India
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Robert Smith Surtees
Title: [probably] Jorrocks's Jaunts and Jollities
Genre: Fiction
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 8869  
Source - Print  
  Author: Gordon Bowker
  Editor: n/a
  Title: Through the Dark Labyrinth: A Biography of Lawrence Durrell
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1996
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 13
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Gordon Bowker, Through the Dark Labyrinth: A Biography of Lawrence Durrell (London, 1996), p. 13, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=8869, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

 

 

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