the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Click check box to select all entries on this page:

Giovanni Battista Belzoni : Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia, &c.

'Flora Thompson's village school had no geography books and no formal instruction in geography or history, other than readers offering stock tales about King Alfred and the cakes and King Canute ordering the tide to retreat... her Royal Reader offered thrilling depictions of the Himalayas, the Andes, Greenland, the Amazon, Hudson's Bay and the South Pacific, as well as scenes from Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper. She also remembered borrowing a decrepit copy of Belzoni's Travels and enjoying intensely the excursion through Egyptian archaeology. But she was an unusually self-motivated reader: her less-educated neighbours were only hazily aware of the existence of Oxford, just nineteen miles away.'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Flora Thompson      Print: Book

Giovanni Battista Belzoni : Travels

'Laura's greatest find was a battered old copy of Belzoni's "Travels" propping open somebody's pantry window. When she asked for the loan of it, it was generously given to her, and she had the intense pleasure of exploring the burial chambers of the pyramids with her author.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Flora Thompson      Print: Book

Giovanni Baptista Belzoni : Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the pyramids, temples, tombs, and excavations, in Egypt and Nubia

'I have just begun Belzoni, & like his simple style very much. Miss Porter (Anna Maria) has published a new Novel, The Village of Mariendorpt, full of the most touching passages, but, as a whole, it drags. Her knowledge of military details appears to me marvellous; the period at which she makes her people act and talk, is during the Protestant War in Germany; she carries you to the dreadful siege of Magdebourg, & takes you into the camp and tent of Forstenson, Konigsmark, and I cannot tell you how many others, & seems to know more of warriors and warfare than, as a woman myself, I can at all account for'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney      Print: Book

Giovanni Belzoni : Narrative of the Operations and recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs, and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia

'Lord Byron, to whom Mr. Murray sent a copy of [Belzoni's] work, said: "Belzoni [italics]is[end italics] a grand traveller, and his English is very prettily broken."'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron      Print: Book

Click check box to select all entries on this page: