I usually when I had done with my french, read some book every night and having left the Corresponding Society I never went from home in the evening I always learned and read for three hours and sometimes longer, the books I now read were french; Helvetius, Rousseau and Voltaire. I never wanted books and could generally borrow those I most desired to peruse.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Place Print: Book
Byron to John Murray, 27 June 1816: 'I have traversed all Rousseau's ground -- with the Heloise before me -- & am struck to a degree with the force and accuracy of hs descriptions ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to John Murray, 9 April 1817: 'I will tell you something about [The Prisoner of] Chillon. -- A Mr. De Luc ninety years old -- a Swiss -- had it read to him & is pleased with it -- so my Sister writes. -- He said that he was with Rousseau at Chillon -- & that the description is perfectly correct -- but this is not all -- I recollected something of the name & find the following passage in "The Confessions" -- vol.3. page 247. Liv. 8th' [quotes passage mentioning "De Luc pere" and "ses deux fils" as companions on boat trip which took in scenery that inspired descriptions in Julie, and conjectures that this De Luc one of the "fils"]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
H. J. Jackson discusses second annotator of 1791 copy of Rousseau, A Treatise on the Social Compact; or, The Principles of Politic Law; ownership inscription in same hand reads "'H. B. L. Webb / Brent House / Master Brace / 30th Dec. 1909. / (Bought at old Bennett's in Castle St.).'" Notes include reference to 1910 elections and comments such as "'very flimsy here'"; "'Pah!'" and (in response to Rousseau's assertion that comparisons between different nations' early religious beliefs "'an absurd part of erudition,'") "'And yet, Jean Jacques, comparitive mythology has told us a different tale about this 'absurd part of erudition'!'"
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: H. B. L. Webb Print: Book
'I have done, as usual, almost nothing since we parted- Some one asked me with a smile, of which I knew not the meaning, if I would read that book, putting into my hands a volume of Rousseau's confessions. It is perhaps the most remarkable tome, I ever read. Except for its occassional obscenity, I might wish to see the remainder of the book: to try if possible to connect the character of Jean Jacques with my previous ideas of human nature.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'Except a brief visit to Ruthwell, I have scarcely been from home since my arrival - my excursions in the world of literature have scarcely been wider. Rousseau's "Contrat Social" - in spite of the frightful notoriety which circumstances gave it - seems little calculated for a remote posterity.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'There is a very extraordinary passage in Rousseau's Thoughts on Fanaticism. It is printed in his Thoughts, published by Debrett, Vol.i. page 11.
Bayle (says he) has acutely proved that Fanaticism is more pernicious than Atheism. This is incontestable. What he has been very careful, however, not to mention, and, what is not less true is, that Fanaticism, although sanguinary and cruel, is still an exalted passion, which elevates the heart of man, raises him above the fear of death, multiplies his resources exceedingly, and which only wants to be better directed, to be productive of the most sublime virtues. (He adds) The argumentative spirit of controversy and philosophy, on the contrary, attaches us to life, enervates and debases the soul, concentrates all passions in the baseness of self-interest, and thus gradually saps the real foundation of all society.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington Print: Book
[Percy Shelley's Reading List for 1815, compiled by Mary Shelley. Only texts not referred to in journal entries are given separate database entries here]
'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
From Claire Clairmont's account of voyage back from Switzerland to England with P. B. Shelley
and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin during 1814:
'Friday September 9th. [...] Read Sophie [i.e. Rousseau's Emile; goes on to quote and discuss
passage from this].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
From Claire Clairmont's account of voyage back from Switzerland to England with P. B. Shelley
and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin during 1814:
'Saturday Sept. 10th. [...] Breakfast with our Companions -- Write -- Read Emile -- Write a
story'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Thursday Sept. 15th. Read Emile -- Write i[n] my Common Place Book [...] Shelley reads us
the Ancient Mariner [...] Read in the Excursion -- the Story of Margaret very beautiful.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Friday Sept. 16th. Rise at nine -- Breakfast -- Read Rasselas -- & De l'origine de l'inegalite
[d]es Hommes'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday Sept. 18. Rise late. Read Emile.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Monday Sept. 19th. Rise late [...] Read the Curse of Kehama & Emile [...] Read the [S]orcerer &
Political Justice. Admire the Sorcerer very much'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Tuesday Sept. 20th. Rise late [...] Read Emile [...] Dine at Seven -- Shelley reads aloud
Thalaba till Bed time.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Sunday Jany. 30th. Read Rousseau sur Les Arts & Les Sciences -- a piece of most extraordinary Prejudice and envious wailing -- It had better have been entitled a Disquisition on the Military Art since it teaches the way to make good Soldiers but not [...] Philosophers.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Unknown
'[Tuesday June [...] 5th. [...] Read Werther and begin Emile de Rousseau.'
[also records reading latter text on 7, 8, 9 June 1821]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
Wednesday 11 May: 'again this heroism in the attempt at pen & ink: but I am tired of reading Rousseau: it is 6 o'clock [...] we are shaking & rattling through Lombardy towards the Alps [on way back from holiday in Greece]'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, 15 January 1846:
'Papa used to say .. "Dont read Gibbon's history -- it's not a proper book -- Dont read "Tom Jones" -- & none of the books on [italics]this[end italics] side, mind -- So I was very obedient & never touched the books on [italics]that[end italics] side, & only read instead, Tom Paine's Age of Reason, & Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, & Hume's Essays, & Werther, & Rousseau, & Mary Woolstonecraft [sic] .. books, which I was never suspected of looking towards, & which were not "on [italics]that[end italics] side" certainly, but which did as well.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Print: Book
[Elizabeth Carter to Catherine Talbot, 4 October 1763:]
'Is your Treatise on Gaiety a poem? If it is I believe I know it -- Pray amongst your French studies have you met with a refutation of Rousseau's Emile? It is in many parts admirably well writ, and with great strength of argument; but the effect is sometimes unhappily weakened by the mixture of popish doctrines. -- Probably you have seen Rousseau's answer to the Archbishop of Paris's mandement against Emile. There are sometimes so many right things blended with Rousseau's very dangerous errors, that I suppose there are few authors whom is it so difficult to answer in a proper way.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter Print: Unknown
