'Weeton's reading becomes important in communication with friends, but also a point of conflict: when she visits her brother and his wife, they complain that she spends all her time reading, though she insists that she read very little ("only... Gil Blas, now and then a newspaper, two or three of Lady M. W. Montagu's letters, and few pages in a magazine'), and only because her hosts rose so late. Since her literacy is important as a sign of status, she repeatedly presents herself not as a reader of low status texts like novels but of travels, education works, memoirs and letters, including Boswell's "Tour of the Hebrides", the Travels of Mungo Park, and Mme de Genlis' work. She approves some novels, like Hamilton's "The Cottagers of Glenburnie", but generally finds them a "dangerous, facinating kind of amusement" which "destroy all relish for useful, instructive studies'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Ellen Weeton Print: Book
"This minute I hear a carman is going to Navan, and I hasten to send you the Cottagers of Glenburnie, which I hope you will like as well as I do. I think it will do a vast deal of good to you, and besides it is extremely interesting, which all good books are not: it has great powers, both comic and tragic."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria Edgeworth Print: Book
The Cottagers of Glenburnie. 1 vol. by Miss Hamilton. A little tale tending to shew the folly of adhering to old customs merely because they have been habitual for many generations, particularlythe scottish tenacity, indolence, and want of cleanliness in their houses and about their farms. The tale is told in such a manner as scarcely to offend even a scotchman, and may very probably have some influence in effecting a reformation.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Ellen Weeton Print: Book
'In December 1810 a box of books arrived and the family began to read a novel which they "liked very much". This book is "modern Philosophy", whose anti-heroine, "Miss Biddy Botherin", who made them "Laugh a good deal", is a devotee of radical Godwinian philosophy, a satirical portrait probably combining elements pf Mary Hays and Mary Wollstonecraft" [hence Grove is resisting her then-fiance Shelley's philosophy and aesthetics.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Grove Print: Book
'In December 1810 a box of books arrived and the family began to read a novel which they "liked very much". This book is "Modern Philosophy", whose anti-heroine, "Miss Biddy Botherin", who made them "laugh a good deal", is a devotee of radical Godwinian philosophy, a satirical portrait probably combining elements of Mary Hays and Mary Wollstonecraft.' [Grove is resisting her then-fiance Shelley's philosophy and aesthetics].
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Grove Print: Book
'Having heard much of Miss Hamilton's celebrated novel of the "Modern Philosopher" we on Wed'y the 14th got it from Humphrey's Library w'ch Edw'd & I afterw'ds read out on even'gs [...] to Mrs M & were all much entertained with it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Marsh family Print: Book
'I have also read the Modern Philosophers, which in spight [sic] of a little vulgarity & too much sameness, I like extremely. Julia's character is beautiful & tho' Harriet Orwell gives one rather too much the idea of a blushing maid with a workbag, & I cannot fancy anything very romantic in the way of love--with an apothecary, yet her character is, I think, extremely well drawn & I like Bridgetina very much.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1816. The diary from May 1815-July 1816 is lost, so this list is our only record for Mary's reading in early 1816. Later in the year texts are referred to in diary entries so as far as possible these works are not given separate database references based on this list. An x marks the fact that Percy Shelley read the book too.]
x Moritz' tour in England
Tales of the Minstrels
x Park's Journal of a Journey in Africa
Peregrine Proteus
x Siege of Corinth & Parasina.
4 vols. of Clarendon's History
x Modern Philosophers
opinions of Various writers on the punishment of death by B. Montagu
Erskines speeches
x Caleb Williams
x 3rd Canto of Childe Harold
Schiller's arminian
Lady Craven's Leters
Caliste
Nouvelle nouvelles
Romans de Voltaire
Reveries d'un Solitaire de Rousseau
Adele et Theodore
x Lettres Persannes de Montesquieu
Tableau de Famille
Le vieux de la Montagne
x Conjuration de Rienzi
Walther par La Fontaine
Les voeux temeraires
Herman d'Una
Nouveaux nouvelles de Mad. de Genlis
x Christabel
Caroline de Litchfield
x Bertram
x Le Criminel se[c]ret
Vancenza by Mrs Robinson
Antiquary
x Edinburgh Review num. LII
Chrononhotonthologus
x Fazio
Love and Madness
Memoirs of Princess of Bareith
x Letters of Emile
The latter part of Clarissa Harlowe
Clarendons History of the Civil War
x Life of Holcroft
x Glenarvon
Patronage
The Milesian Chief.
O'Donnel
x Don Quixote
x Vita Alexandri - Quintii Curtii
Conspiration de Rienzi
Introduction to Davy's Chemistry
Les Incas de Marmontel
Bryan Perdue
Sir C. Grandison
x Castle Rackrent
x Gulliver's Travels
x Paradise Lost
x Pamela
x 3 vol of Gibbon
1 book of Locke's Essay
Some of Horace's odes
x Edinburgh Review L.III
Rights of Women
De senectute by Cicero
2 vols of Lord Chesterfield's leters to his son
x Story of Rimini'
'Pastor Fido
Orlando Furioso
Livy's History
Seneca's Works
Tasso's Girusalame Liberata
Tassos Aminta
2 vols of Plutarch in Italian
Some of the plays of Euripedes
Seneca's Tragedies
Reveries of Rousseau
Hesiod
Novum Organum
Alfieri's Tragedies
Theocritus
Ossian
Herodotus
Thucydides
Homer
Locke on the Human Understanding
Conspiration de Rienzi
History of arianism
Ochley's History of the Saracens
Mad. de Stael sur la literature'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1816. The diary from May 1815-July 1816 is lost, so this list is our only record for Mary's reading in early 1816. Later in the year texts are referred to in diary entries so as far as possible these works are not given separate database references based on this list. An x marks the fact that Percy Shelley read the book too.]
x Moritz' tour in England
Tales of the Minstrels
x Park's Journal of a Journey in Africa
Peregrine Proteus
x Siege of Corinth & Parasina.
4 vols. of Clarendon's History
x Modern Philosophers
opinions of Various writers on the punishment of death by B. Montagu
Erskines speeches
x Caleb Williams
x 3rd Canto of Childe Harold
Schiller's arminian
Lady Craven's Leters
Caliste
Nouvelle nouvelles
Romans de Voltaire
Reveries d'un Solitaire de Rousseau
Adele et Theodore
x Lettres Persannes de Montesquieu
Tableau de Famille
Le vieux de la Montagne
x Conjuration de Rienzi
Walther par La Fontaine
Les voeux temeraires
Herman d'Una
Nouveaux nouvelles de Mad. de Genlis
x Christabel
Caroline de Litchfield
x Bertram
x Le Criminel se[c]ret
Vancenza by Mrs Robinson
Antiquary
x Edinburgh Review num. LII
Chrononhotonthologus
x Fazio
Love and Madness
Memoirs of Princess of Bareith
x Letters of Emile
The latter part of Clarissa Harlowe
Clarendons History of the Civil War
x Life of Holcroft
x Glenarvon
Patronage
The Milesian Chief.
O'Donnel
x Don Quixote
x Vita Alexandri - Quintii Curtii
Conspiration de Rienzi
Introduction to Davy's Chemistry
Les Incas de Marmontel
Bryan Perdue
Sir C. Grandison
x Castle Rackrent
x Gulliver's Travels
x Paradise Lost
x Pamela
x 3 vol of Gibbon
1 book of Locke's Essay
Some of Horace's odes
x Edinburgh Review L.III
Rights of Women
De senectute by Cicero
2 vols of Lord Chesterfield's leters to his son
x Story of Rimini'
'Pastor Fido
Orlando Furioso
Livy's History
Seneca's Works
Tasso's Girusalame Liberata
Tassos Aminta
2 vols of Plutarch in Italian
Some of the plays of Euripedes
Seneca's Tragedies
Reveries of Rousseau
Hesiod
Novum Organum
Alfieri's Tragedies
Theocritus
Ossian
Herodotus
Thucydides
Homer
Locke on the Human Understanding
Conspiration de Rienzi
History of arianism
Ochley's History of the Saracens
Mad. de Stael sur la literature'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'[EDITOR'S WORDS] The same enlightened judgment [of a friend] which had protected "The Rajah", gave its sanction to "The Modern Philosophers", notwithstanding the objections of the too scrupulous author. Experience justified the decision: the work appeared early in 1800, and passed through two editions before the end of the year'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mrs G- Manuscript: Unknown
'[EDITOR'S WORDS] The same enlightened judgment [of a friend] which had protected "The Rajah", gave its sanction to "The Modern Philosophers", notwithstanding the objections of the too scrupulous author. Experience justified the decision: the work appeared early in 1800, and passed through two editions before the end of the year'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mrs G- Manuscript: Unknown
'[EDITOR'S WORDS] In composing this work [her "Letters on Education"], she accustomed herself to read a few letters to some sensible female, who had an interest in the subject; - a practice repugnant to the self-importance of literary egotism, but from which she learnt to measure the capacities of those it was her object to enlighten, and her ambition to instruct'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Hamilton Manuscript: Unknown
'When the first proof came home, I did not like its look in print; so stopped the press, and wrote another first chapter'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Hamilton Print: proof
'[EDITOR'S WORDS] 'On reading the first sheets [of her "Cottagers of Glenburnie"] at her own fire-side, she was encouraged by observing, that it excited mirth. This induced her to extend the plan'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Hamilton Manuscript: Unknown
'[EDITOR'S WORDS] She had, however, dwelt long enough on the idea [of aging] to make it the subject of a sportive poem, which she one evening read with a smiling countenance to her little family circle' [the poem is reproduced].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Hamilton Manuscript: Unknown
'[letter to Hector MacNeil - H.M.] In what you say with regard to the second volume of "Letters on Education" being, in some parts, too abstruse for certain readers, you are, by no means, singular; nor was the objection unforeseen or unexpected'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hector Macneil Print: Book
'[letter to Dr S.] I submitted my half finished manuscript [to my friend Mr D. S-], which he read over with critical and minute attention. He flatters me with the assurance, that it is written in a far more mastely manner than any of my former productions; and pronounces biography to be my [italics] forte [end italics]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr D.S- Manuscript: Unknown
