'Princess Charlotte wrote of reading as a "great passion"; in a poignant attempt to
construct bourgeois domestic intimacy in the dysfunctional household of the
divorced Prince Regent she discussed and exchanged books with her friend
Margaret Mercer Elphinstone, including memoirs and recent history, Byron's poems,
and novels including Gothic fiction and works by Anne Plumptre and Jane Austen.
(The perceptive Charlotte especially enjoyed "Sense and Sensibility" because she
discerned in herself "the same imprudence" as Marianne's).'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Princess Charlotte Print: Book
'Extract from Byron's Monody on the death of Sheridan' [transcript of text]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Bowly
'Sonnet on Chillon' [transcript of text]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Bowly
'Our parents had accumulated a large number of books, which we were allowed to browse in as much as we liked.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Vivian (Molly) Hughes Print: Book
'Shakespeare incited his appetitie for poetry: Cowper, Pope, Dryden, Goldsmith, Thomson, Byron. Not only were they more interesting than the fifty volumes of Wesley's Christian Library: eventually Barker realised that "the reason why I could not understand them was, that there was nothing to be understood - that the books were made up of words, and commonplace errors and mystical and nonsensical expressions, and that there was no light or truth in them". When his superintendent searched his lodgings and found Shakespeare and Byron there, Barker was hauled before a disciplinary committee'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Barker Print: Book
'De Quincey ... in a letter to the Wordsworths of 27 May 1809 said that he had read ... [Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers] "some weeks - or perhaps months - ago: but it is so deplorably dull and silly that I never thought of mentioning it before.'''
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas De Quincey Print: Book
'On 17-18 May 1812 W[ordsworth] wrote to M[ary] W[ordsworth]: "Yesterday I dined alone with Lady B. - and we read Lord Byron's new poem whch is not destitute of merit; though ill-planned, and often unpleasing in the sentiments, and almost always perplexed in the construction."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
'On 17-18 May 1812 W[ordsworth] wrote to M[ary] W[ordsworth]: "Yesterday I dined
alone with Lady B. - and we read Lord Byron's new poem whch is not destitute of
merit; though ill-planned, and often unpleasing in the sentiments, and almost always
perplexed in the construction."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Beaumont Print: Book
'Writing to D[orothy] W[ordsworth] on 19 Aug. 1814, W[ordsworth] describes an incident in a Perth bookshop: "I stepped yesterday evening into a Bookseller's shop with a sneaking hope that I might hear something about the Excursion ... on the contrary, inquiry of the Bookseller what a poetical parcel he was then opening consisted of, he said that it was a new Poem, called Lara ... supposed to be written by Lord Byron ... I took the book in my hand, and saw Jacqueline in the same column with Lara ... "'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
'In 1898 Armstrong organised the Ashington Debating and Literary Improvement Society, and his reading broadened out to Shakespeare, Burns, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Byron, Whitman, Wordsworth, Scott, Robert Browning, Darwin and T.H. Huxley. Robertson Nicoll's British Weekly had introduced him to a more liberal Nonconformity that was hospitable to contemporary literature. The difficulty was that the traditional Nonconformist commitment to freedom of conscience was propelling him beyond the confines of Primitive Methodism, as far as Unitarianism, the Rationalist Press Association and the Independent Labour Party. His tastes in literature evolved apace: Ibsen, Zola. Meredith, and Wilde by the 1890s; then on to Shaw, Wells, and Bennett; and ultimately Marxist economics and Brave New World'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Chester Armstrong Print: Book
Byron to William J. Bankes, on having received 'two Critical opinions, from Edinburgh' (of Lord Woodhouselee and Henry Mackenzie) in praise of his Poems on Various Occasions: 'I am not personally acquainted with either of these Gentlemen ... their praise is voluntary, and transmitted through the Medium, of a Friend, at whose house, they read the productions.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee Print: Book
Byron to William J. Bankes, on having received 'two Critical opinions, from Edinburgh' (of Lord Woodhouselee and Henry Mackenzie) in praise of his Poems on Various Occasions: 'I am not personally acquainted with either of these Gentlemen ... their praise is voluntary, and transmitted through the Medium, of a Friend, at whose house, they read the productions.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Mackenzie Print: Book
In Byron's Journal (14 November 1813-19 April 1814): 'I never in my life read a composition [of his own], save to Hodgson, as he pays me in kind. It is a horrible thing to do too frequently ... '
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron
[due to the fact that books in working class communities were generally cheap out of copyright reprints, not new works] 'Welsh collier Joseph Keating was able to immerse himself in Swift, Pope, Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Keats, Byron, Shelley, Dickens and Greek philosophy, as well as the John Dicks edition of Vanity Fair in weekly installments. The common denominator among these authors was that they were all dead. "Volumes by living authors were too high-priced for me", Keating explained. "Our schoolbooks never mentioned living writers; and the impression in my mind was that an author, to be a living author, must be dead and that his work was all the better if he died of neglect and starvation".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Keating Print: Book
'The son of a barely literate Derbyshire collier recalled a sister, a worker in a hosiery factory, who was steeped in the poetry of Byron, Shelley, Keats and D.H. Lawrence. Their mother's reading "would astonish the modern candidate for honours in English at any university", he claimed. "Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgeniev, Dumas, Hugo, Thackeray, Meredith, Scott, Dickens, all the classics, poetry etc., all these gave her immense joy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sutton Print: Book
'finished my morning's work a few minutes before 2. Made an extract or 2 from Lord Byron's Childe Harold + the lyrics at the end of the book in readiness to take it back. Set off down the old bank a little before 4. Staid at the library above an hour looking out a couple of books with proper prints for the children to copy at Pye Nest.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister Print: Book
'[George] Moore pinpointed his ... awakening interest in fiction to overhearing his parents discussing whether Lady Audley murdered her husband. Then aged 11, Moore "took the first opportunity of stealing the novel in question [Lady Audley' s Secret]. I read it eagerly, passionately, vehemently," afterwards progressing to the rest of Braddon's fiction, including The Doctor's Wife, about "a lady who loved Shelley and Byron", which in turn led him to take up those poets ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Moore Print: Book
'Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer ... liked to get away from political anxieties by devouring what he called "shilling shockers": adventure stories, American westerns, and thrillers, though he would occasionally leaven the mixture by rereading Dickens and what he considered the erotic passages of Byron, Milton and Burns. He did latch on to some best-sellers, such as Jeffrey Farnol's The Amateur Gentleman (1913), which he read "over and over again" ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Lloyd George Print: Book
'I do not like Lord Byron's English Bards and Scotch reviewers, though, as my father says, the lines are very strong and worthy of Pope and the Dunciad! But I was so much prejudiced against the whole by the first lines I opened upon about the 'paralytic muse' of the man who had been his guardian and is his relation and to whom he had dedicated his first poems, that I could not relish his wit. He may have great talents, but I am sure he has neither a great not good mind; and I feel dislike and disgust for his Lordship.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Maria Edgeworth Print: Book
?But Lord Byron ? he must write with great ease and rapidity.?
?That I don?t know. I could never finish the perusal of any of his long poems. There is something in them excessively at variance with my notions of poetry. He is too fond of the obsolete? It is a sort of a mixed mode, neither old nor new, but incessantly hovering between both.?
?What do you think of Childe Harold??
?I do not know what to think of it; nor can I give you definitely my reasons for disliking his poems generally.?
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Maturin Print: Book
'As a collier [Joseph Keating]... heard a co-worker sigh, "Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate". Keating was stunned: "You are quoting Pope". "Ayh", replied his companion, "me and Pope do agree very well". Keating had himself been reading Pope, Fielding, Smollett, Goldsmith and Richarson in poorly printed paperbacks. Later he was reassigned to a less demanding job at a riverside colliery pumping station, which allowed him time to tackle Swift, Sheridan, Byron, Keats, Shelley and Thackeray'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Keating Print: Book
'Lancashire millworker Ben Brierley read penny fairy tales and horror stories as a boy, but they did not contribute to his work as a dialect poet: "I must confess that my soul did not feel much lifted by the only class of reading then within my reach. It was not until I joined the companionship of Burns and Byron that I felt 'the god within me'".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Ben Brierley Print: Book
'There were few books at home when [Harry Burton] was a boy, but one of them was "Don Juan". He read it before he was eleven - through a prepubescent frame, of course. "I saw nothing in it but comic adventures, sunny shores, storms, Arabian interiors and words, words, words. Many of these words I did not understand, but I did not therefore jump to the conclusion that they were indecent. All of them - or nearly all - jogged happily through my unreceptive brain leaving vaguely pleasing sensations in their wake.... Genius speaks to all hearts and to all ages".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harry Burton Print: Book
'George Howell, bricklayer and trade unionist..."read promiscuously. How could it be otherwise? I had no real guide, was obliged to feel my way into light. Yet perhaps there was a guidance, although indefinite and without distinctive aim". Howell groped his way through literature "on the principle that one poet's works suggested another, or the criticisms on one led to comparisons with another. Thus: Milton - Shakespeare; Pope-Dryden; Byron-Shelley; Burns-Scott; Coleridge-Wordsworth and Southey, and later on Spenser-Chaucer, Bryant-Longfellow, and so on". By following these intertextual links, autodidacts could reconstruct the literary canon on their own'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Howell Print: Book
'John Smith, Bob Hankinson, and I, went over the "Hebrew Melodies" together'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
'Lancashire journalist Allen Clarke (b.1863), the son of a Bolton textile worker, avidly read his father's paperback editions of Shakespeare and ploughed through the literature section (Chaucer, Marlowe, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Milton, Pope, Chatterton, Goldsmith, Byron, Shelley, Burns, Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt) of the public library. With that preparation, he was winning prizes for poems in London papers by age thirteen...[he] went on to found and edit several Lancashire journals'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Allen Clarke Print: Book
'Anne Grant loved books, but felt guilty about literary pleasure: she enjoyed Byron's poems but worried about their morality, and was "fully convinced of the bad tendency" of the works of Peter Pindar because of "the amusement I derive from them".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
'In the [italics]Autobiography[end italics] he tells us of the impact of Byron on him and his friend Dave: "His influence on Dave was so great that it was publicly shown to all the boys and girls in the chapel's schoolroom... While we were playing kiss in the ring, singing and laughing... Dave would lean his figure... against a pillar, biting his lips and frowning at our merrymaking"... His friend soon tired of this Byronic posing, but Davies marks the occasion as the first time he was really attracted to poetry with enjoyment and serious purpose. He went on to read Shelley, Marlowe's plays, and some further Shakespeare. Wordsworth failed to attract him, though he later studied him very diligently'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Henry Davies Print: Book
'In the [italics]Autobiography[end italics] he tells us of the impact of Byron on him and his friend Dave: "His influence on Dave was so great that it was publicly shown to all the boys and girls in the chapel's schoolroom... While we were playing kiss in the ring, singing and laughing... Dave would lean his figure... against a pillar, biting his lips and frowning at our merrymaking"... His friend soon tired of this Byronic posing, but Davies marks the occasion as the first time he was really attracted to poetry with enjoyment and serious purpose. He went on to read Shelley, Marlowe's plays, and some further Shakespeare. Wordsworth failed to attract him, though he later studied him very diligently'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: [Dave, friend of W.H. Davies] anon Print: Book
Leon Edel quotes John Buchan, in "Memory Hold-the-Door" (1940), pp.151-52:
'an aunt of my wife's [Lady Lovelace], who was the widow of Byron's grandson, asked Henry James and myself to examine her archives in order to reach some conclusion on the merits of the quarrel between Byron and his wife [...] during a summer week-end, Henry James and I waded through masses of ancient indecency, and duly wrote an opinion [signed by Buchan on 4 April 1910 and by James on 7 April]. The things nearly made me sick, but my colleague never turned a hair.'
Edel adds that 'Byron's intimate letters to Lady Melbourne [copied by Lord Lovelace] [...] written during the three years preceding [his] marriage, were the ones read by James and Buchan.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James and John Buchan Manuscript: Letter
'From that time [summer 1840] to the present [1845] I have not read much. I have, however, looked through Lord Byron's works, the "Memoirs of Mr William Hutton", and Dr Stilling's Autobiography; with some of the works of Sir Walter Scott, Dr Southey, and Miss Martineau.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
Henry Chorley, in Memorials of Mrs Hemans (1836): 'after having heard those beautiful stanzas addressed to his sister [composed August 1816] by Lord Byron -- which afterwards appeared in print -- read aloud twice in manuscript, she [Felicia Hemans] repeated them to us, and even wrote them down with a surprising accuracy.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Felicia Hemans Manuscript: Unknown
'Childe Harold
I have read your Book & cannot refrain from telling you that I think it & all those whom I live with & whose opinions are far more worth having--think it beautiful.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb Print: Book
'"perchance my dog will whine in vain
"Till fed my stranger hands--
"But long e'er I come back again
"he'd tear me where he stands'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb Print: Book
'She read enormously, finding time and energy we wonder how. A list of her books makes the unregenerate blood run cold, though she did include some novels - Miss Edgeworth's and Beckford's sensation-making "Vathek", in which she detected the source of some passages in the Book of the Season, Lord Byron's "Childe Harold". "Childe Harold's" only rival in her poetic reading was "The Faerie Queene". That was a reckless undertaking for the height of the London season; she may not, like so many of us, have quite finished "The Faerie Queene".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke Print: Book
'she asked [Byron] to recommend her some books of modern history. At present she was reading Sismondi's "Italian Republics". And she had read "Lara". Shakespeare alone possessed the same power as Byron had there displayed'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke Print: Book
'Early in July appeared the first part of "Don Juan". "The impression was not so disagreeable as I expected", wrote Annabella. "In the first place I am very much relieved to find that there is not anything which I can be expected to notice... I do not feel inclined to continue the perusal. It is always a task to me now to read his works, in which, through all the levity, I discern enough to awake very painful feelings".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella (Annabella), Baroness Byron Print: Serial / periodical
'Early in 1831 there is the following entry in a diary: "Read to Ada the beautiful lines on Greece in 'The Giaour', the 'Fare thee well', and the 'Satire'. With the first she was highly pleased, from its efusion-of-feeling character; the 2nd she thought laboured and inferior in pathos; the 3rd very amusing though very unlike the person".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella (Annabella), Baroness Byron Print: Book
'Early in 1831 there is the following entry in a diary: "Read to Ada the beautiful lines on Greece in 'The Giaour', the 'Fare thee well', and the 'Satire'. With the first she was highly pleased, from its efusion-of-feeling character; the 2nd she thought laboured and inferior in pathos; the 3rd very amusing though very unlike the person".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella (Annabella), Baroness Byron Print: Book
'Early in 1831 there is the following entry in a diary: "Read to Ada the beautiful lines on Greece in 'The Giaour', the 'Fare thee well', and the 'Satire'. With the first she was highly pleased, from its efusion-of-feeling character; the 2nd she thought laboured and inferior in pathos; the 3rd very amusing though very unlike the person".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Isabella (Annabella), Baroness Byron Print: Book
'Mary read to me some passages from Ld Byron's poems. I was not before so clearly aware [of] how much of the colouring our own feelings throw upon the liveliest delineations of other minds'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: Title = 'Strangers by Lord Byron'; Text = 'When coldness wraps this suffering clay/ Ah! whither strays the immortal mind?/ It cannot die, it cannot stay/ But leaves its darken'd dust behind ...' [total = 4 x 8 line verses]
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
[Item transcribed into a commonplace book]: Untitled; Text = 'Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine/ A sad, sour, sober beverage - by time/ Is sharpen'ed from its high celestial flavour/ Down to a very homely household savour'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Magdalene Sharpe- Erskine Print: Unknown
'I read his own [Byron's] memoirs before Murray burnt them.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb
'Dear Lord Byron?
I must thank you for yr. Poem you have sent me I [this word is illegible] not say how good I think it is [?]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Sarah Jersey Manuscript: Unknown
'I received the Books, & among them the Bride of Abydos. It is very, very beautiful.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Canning Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
'She was shocked by some of the hero's adventures but more often thrilled. Laura learned quite a lot by reading "Don Juan".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Flora Thompson Print: Book
'On a Gold Heart Which Was broken' 'Ill fated heart and can it be/...' [transcript changes the gender of the speaker]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'On the Destruction of Semnacherib/ By Byron'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Julia Print: Unknown
'Modern Greece/ From the Bride of Abydos'
'Know ye the land where the cypress & myrtle/...' [canto one, stanza one (only) of Bride of Abydos: A Turkish Tale]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'To a Lady Weeping "Weep, daughter of a royal line..."'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George or Edward Carey Print: Unknown
'From Byron' 'The Chain I Gave Was Fair to View.../'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Julia Print: Unknown
'Written Beneath a Picture' 'Dear object of defeated care!/...' 'R.G.C. 1835'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: 'R.G.C.' Print: Unknown
'On being asked what was the "Origin of Love"' 'The "Origin of Love! - ah why/That question cruel ask of me/...' [minor differences from the original]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward or George Carey Print: Unknown
'A Fragment' 'When to their airy hall... [printed first line 'When, to their...] 'Byron'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'Friendship' 'O yes I will own we were dear to one another/...' [Oh! Yes, I will own we were dear to each other/...' - Byron's original text]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret Maingay [?] Print: Unknown
'Farewell' 'Farewell! If ever fondest prayer/...' [Some differences in punctuation from Byron's text]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'The Tear' 'When Friendship or Love' [Epigraph from Gray, not transcribed]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Carey/Maingay group Print: Unknown
'Impromptu, in Reply to a Friend' 'When from the heart where sorrow sits/...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Molineux group, including Mrs Molineux
'On A Cornelian Heart Which Was Broken' [transcript entire poem]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Molineux group, including Mrs Molineux
'On A Cornelian Heart Which Was Broken' [transcript entire poem]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Molineux group, including Mrs Molineux
'From the Portuguese' 'In moments to delight devoted/...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Molineux group, including Mrs Molineux
'On Parting' 'The kiss, dear maid! Thy lip has left, /...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Molineux group, including Mrs Molineux
'On being asked what was the "Origin of Love"' 'The "Origin of Love!" - Ah Why That Cruel question ask of Me.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Molineux group, including Mrs Molineux
'Sonnet on Chillon "Eternal spirit of the Chainless Mind!, ..."'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'Why should my anxious heart repine, ... Byron-1807' [three stanzas first published in Moore's 'Life', 1830]
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'It is the voice of the years that are gone! They roll before me with all their deeds. Ossian! Newstead! Fast falling, once resplendent dome!/...' 'Elegy on Newstead Abbey, Early Poems 1803'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'If that high World If that high World which has beyond...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'On leaving Newstead Abbey ... >From Newstead Sept 9th 1830'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'I would I were a careless child, ...' 'Early Poems'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'Oh! Snatched away in Beauty's bloom...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
Extract from Byron's Monody on the Death of Sheridan
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'Voice of the Second Spirit' 'Mont Blanc is the Monarch of mountains, ...' 'Manfred'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'Sun of the Sleepless' 'Sun of the Sleepless! Melancholy Star!...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'When coldness wraps this suffering clay ... Hebrew Melodies'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean - roll! ... And laid my hand upon thy mane - as I do here. 4th canto'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bowly group
'Sometime about the twenty first year of my age I perceived the great advantage possessed by those who received a classical education. I had read Byron's "Childe Harold" and the passage "Alas for Tully's voice" and Virgil's Lay And Troy's pictured page &c inspired me with a desire to dive deeper into Latin Literature.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert White Print: Book
'for each there had been no poet later than Byron...'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip and Emily Gosse Print: Book
'Then, when I was twelve we had a really good poetry book which contained extracts from "The Excursion", part of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", "The Eve of Saint Agnes", "Adonais", "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", and Mathew Arnold's "Tristram and Iseult". We were given "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" and "The Pied Piper" to learn by heart in consecutive years. I never liked "The Pied Piper", which, being written consciously as a child's poem, made me feel conscious, and most of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" seemed unreal to me... The poems in the book which I liked best were "The Eve of Saint Agnes" and "Tristram and Iseult"...'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Muir Print: Book
'Our syllabus was large, covering at least twelve set books: two plays of Shakespeare's, two volumes of Milton and two of Keats; Chaucer, Sheridan, Lamb, Scott's "Old Mortality" and the first book of "The Golden Treasury", with its marvellous pickings of Coleridge, Shelly, Byron and, especially, Wordsworth, which excited me, at that age, more than any other poetry written.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Norman Nicholson Print: Book
'Do not be angry with me for beginning another Letter to you. I have read the Corsair, mended my petticoat, & have nothing else to do.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen Print: Book
'During Mr Montgomery's stay he read books from my library, and on his returning Byron's Doge of Venice.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Montgomery Print: Book
Elizabeth Missing Sewell on her reading at home in the Isle of Wight, after leaving her Bath boarding school in 1830:
'I used to study by myself, for I knew that I was woefully ignorant. Such books as Russell's "History of Modern Europe" and Robertson's "Charles the Fifth", I read, and also Watts on the "Improvement of the Mind", and I plodded through an Italian history of the Venetian Doges, lent me by an intimate and valued friend of my father, Mr. Turnbull [...] I taught myself besides to read Spanish -- for having found a Spanish "Don Quixote" lying about, which no one claimed, I took possession of it, bought a grammar and dictionary, and set to work to master the contents of
the books which I knew so well by name. The elements of botany on the Linnean system was another of my attempted acquirements, but I am afraid my studies were very superficial: I knew nothing perfectly, but I read everything that came in my way. There was an excellent town library in Newport, from which I could get any good modern works; and, beside the graver literature, I had always some lighter book on hand, and especially delighted in Walter Scott's novels and poetry. Byron, too was a great favourite.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Sewell Print: Book
[italics] 'S. remains at home. reads Livy - [scored out] p.532 2d vol. [end scored out] Maie reads very little of Gibbon - We read and are delighted with Lara - the finest of Lord B's poems. S. reads Lara aloud in the evening. [end italics]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin and Percy Shelley Print: Book
[italics] 'S. remains at home. reads Livy - [scored out] p.532 2d vol. [end scored out] Maie reads very little of Gibbon - We read and are delighted with Lara - the finest of Lord B's poems. S. reads Lara aloud in the evening. [end italics]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley 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: 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
[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
'Read 3rd Canto of Childe Harold'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'I am melancholy with reading the 3rd Canto of Childe Harold. Do you not remember, Shelley when you first read it to me? One evening after returning from Diodati. It was in our little room at Chapuis - the lake was before us and the mighty Jura. That time is past and this will also pass when I may weep to read this words and again moralize on the flight of time. Dear Lake! I shall ever love thee. How a powerful mind can sanctify past scenes and recollections - His is a powerful mind. one that fills me with melancholy yet mixed with pleasure as is always the case when intellectual energy is displayed. I think of our excursions on the lake. how we saw him when he came down to us or welcomed our arrival with a goodhumoured smile - How very vividly does each verse of his poem recall some scene of this kind to my memory - This time will soon also be a recollection - We may see him again & again - enjoy his society but the time will also arrive when that which is now an anticipation will be only in the memory - death will at length come and in the last moment all will be a dream.
Am I not very melancholy? Godwin is out and I shall finish the canto although I fear it will not raise my spirits.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'read Sterne & the 2nd Canto of Childe Harold'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read the Giaur[sic] & the Corsair'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read the Giaur[sic] & the Corsair'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Lara'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Monday Jany. 3rd. [...] Read Don Juan. Read the Life of Plutarch.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Read Prisoner of Chillon &c. to Mrs G'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. calls on Lord B - He [presumably Shelley] reads the 4th Canto of Childe Harold'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read 4th Canto'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Transcribe Mazeppa'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Manuscript: Unknown
'Finish transcribing Mazeppa - Copy the ode'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Manuscript: Unknown
'Read "Women" of Mathuerin [for Maturin] - the Fudge Family - Beppo &c. S. begins the Republic of Plato'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Sleep at Bologna - S. reads 4th Canto aloud to me - read Montaigne'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads D.[on] Juan aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read Don Juan'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy - work - Read Mazeppa - S. reads Sophocles - & St Mathew [sic] aloud to me - Translate S.[pinoza]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Don Juan'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's reading list for 1820, with texts also read by Percy Shelley marked with an x. Only texts not mentioned in the journal are given separate entries based on this list]
'M. (& (S with an x) - 1820
The remainder of Livy.
x The Bible until the end of Ezekhiel
x Don Juan
x Travels Before the Flood
La Nouvelle Heloise
The Fable of the Bees
Paine's Works
Utopia
x Voltaire's Memoires
x The Aenied [sic] And Georgics
Bridone's Travels
Robinson Crusoe
Sandford & Merton
x Astronomy in the Encyclopaedia
Vindication of the Rights of women
x Boswell's life of Johnson
Paradise regained & lost
Mary - Letters from Norway & Posthumus [sic] Works
Ivanhoe - Tales of my Landlord
Fleetwood - Caleb Williams
x Ricciardetto.
x Mrs Macauly's [sic] Hist. of Engd
x Lucretius
The 3 first orations of Cicero
Muratori Anti chita [sic] d'Italia
Travels & Rebellion in Ireland
Tegrino's life of Castruccio
x Boccacio [sic] - Decamerone
x Keats' poems
x armata
Corinne
The first book of Homer. Oedippus [sic] Tyrannus
A Little Spanish & much Italian.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'read Cain'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read the Vision of Judgement'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Manuscript: Unknown
'S. reads L.[ord] B.[yron]'s - Heaven and Earth in the evening'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Manuscript: Unknown
'dine with Jane - Read Albe's tragedy to her'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Manuscript: Unknown
'read Sardanapalus'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley
'Read the Two Foscari'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley
'The elements of botany on the Linnaean system was another of my attempted acquirements, but I am afraid my studies were very superficial: I knew nothing perfectly, but I read everything that came in my way. There was an excellent town library in Newport, from which I could get any good modern works; and, besides the graver literature, I had always some lighter book on hand, and especially delighted in Walter Scott's novels and poetry. Byron, too, was a great favourite'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
'I am sorry to mention that [Lord Byron's] last poem upon "The Decadence of Bonaparte", is worthy neither his pen nor his muse'.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Princess Caroline Princess of Wales
'Your descriptions of your travels do indeed set my feet moving, and my heart longing to see all you have seen; and this desire has been increased by reading the "Corsair" lately; it is indeed exquisite, the most perfect, I think, of all Byron's performances. What a divine picture of death is that of the description of Gulnare!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Susan Ferrier Print: Book
'As you like sometimes high treason, I send you a copy of the verses written by Lord Byron on the discovery of the bodies of Charles the First and Henry the Eighth: you may communicate it to any of your friends you please'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Princess Caroline, Princess of Wales Manuscript: Unknown
'if you have no [italics] odd things [end italics] lying about you which I daresay you do not lack there are many pieces among those you published in your youth which are I deem not much known and which I think extremely beautifull if you would deign to favour us with something of either the one class or the other you can hardly conceive how much it would oblige [italics] me [end italics] in particular and turn as it were every letter of our little repository into gold'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Unknown
'I have had such a pleasant morning perusing Lara to day that I cannot risist [sic] the impulse of writing to you and telling you so. The last Canto of it is much the best thing you ever wrote - there are many pictures in it which the heart of man can scarcely brook. It is besides more satisfactorily and better wind up [sic] than any of your former tales and the images rather more perceptible. You are constantly improving in this Your figures from the very first were strong without parallel but in every new touch of your pencil they are better and better relieved. In the first Canto there is haply too much painting of the same and too close on that so much dwelt on in the Corsair; Yet still as it excels the rest in harmony of numbers I am disposed to give it the preference to any of them.
[Hogg then advises Byron not to attempt writing drama]
I have been extremely puzzled to find out who Sir Ezzelin is sometimes I have judged him to be some sea captain at others Medora's uncle or parent from whom the Corsair had stole her but I have at last pleased myself by concluding that Lord Byron does not know himself - what a wretched poet Mr Rogers is. You are truly very hardly set for great original poets in England at present when such as he must be extolled. I could not help smiling at his Jacqueline'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'I have had such a pleasant morning perusing Lara to day that I cannot risist [sic] the impulse of writing to you and telling you so. The last Canto of it is much the best thing you ever wrote - there are many pictures in it which the heart of man can scarcely brook. It is besides more satisfactorily and better wind up [sic] than any of your former tales and the images rather more perceptible. You are constantly improving in this Your figures from the very first were strong without parallel but in every new touch of your pencil they are better and better relieved. In the first Canto there is haply too much painting of the same and too close on that so much dwelt on in the Corsair; Yet still as it excels the rest in harmony of numbers I am disposed to give it the preference to any of them
[Hogg then advises Byron not to attempt writing drama]
I have been extremely puzzled to find out who Sir Ezzelin is sometimes I have judged him to be some sea captain at others Medora's uncle or parent from whom the Corsair had stole her but I have at last pleased myself by concludoing thatg Lord Byron does not know himself - what a wretched poet Mr Rogers is You are truly very hardly set for great original poets in England at present when such as he must be extolled. I could not help smiling at his Jacqueline'.'I have had such a pleasant morning perusing Lara to day that I cannot risist [sic] the impulse of writing to you and telling you so. The last Canto of it is much the best thing you ever wrote - there are many pictures in it which the heart of man can scarcely brook. It is besides more satisfactorily and better wind up [sic] than any of your former tales and the images rather more perceptible. You are constantly improving in this Your figures from the very first were strong without parallel but in every new touch of your pencil they are better and better relieved. In the first Canto there is haply too much painting of the same and too close on that so much dwelt on in the Corsair; Yet still as it excels the rest in harmony of numbers I am disposed to give it the preference to any of them.
[Hogg then advises Byron not to attempt writing drama]
I have been extremely puzzled to find out who Sir Ezzelin is sometimes I have judged him to be some sea captain at others Medora's uncle or parent from whom the Corsair had stole her but I have at last pleased myself by concluding that Lord Byron does not know himself - what a wretched poet Mr Rogers is. You are truly very hardly set for great original poets in England at present when such as he must be extolled. I could not help smiling at his Jacqueline'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'The "Melodies" bear a few striking marks of the master's hand but there are some of them feeble and I think they must be Lady B's. He is not equal to Moore for [italics] melodies [end italics].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'After an absence of 9 months in Yarrow I returned here the night before last when for the first time I found a copy of your two last poems kindly sent to me by Murray, the perusal of which have so much renewed my love and admiration of you as a poet that I can no longer resist the inclination of once more writing to you'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'After an absence of 9 months in Yarrow I returned here the night before last when for the first time I found a copy of your two last poems kindly sent to me by Murray, the perusal of which have so much renewed my love and admiration of you as a poet that I can no longer resist the inclination of once more writing to you'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'I am highly dilighted [sic] with your two last little poems. They breathe a vein of poetry which you never once touched before and there is something in "The Siege of Corinth" at least which convinces me that you have loved my own stile of poetry better than you ever acknowledged to me. Some of the people here complain of the inadequacy of the tales to the poetry I am perfectly mad at them and Mr Jeffery [sic] among the rest for such an insinuation. I look upon them both as descriptive poems descriptive of some of the finest and boldest scenes of nature and of the most powerful emotions of the human heart. Perdition to the scanty discernment that would read such poems as they would do a novel for the sake of the plot to the disgrace of the age however be it spoken in the light romantic narrative which our mutual friend Scott has made popular this is the predominant ingredient expected and to a certainty the reviewers will harp upon the shortcoming of it in your poems as a fault'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'I have had a great treat this morning in perusing L. Byron's 3d Canto - Considered as a continuation of Child-Harold [sic] it has some incongruities and perhaps too much egoism still it is a powerful and energetic work and superior to every long poem of my noble friend's - I have had only time to read two articles of the Review which I was in a great hurry to do because I knew the authors of both and was informed of their being in Giffords hand before they were put to press, but I hope all the other articles are better'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Unknown
'I have got the fourth canto to day - It is a glorious morsel!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg Print: Book
'I have done all my [italics] composition [end italics] of Ld B -, & done Crabbe outright since you left & got up Dryden & Pope - so now I'm all clear & straight before me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
'I went yesterday to Montreux and then changed and went in a funny funicular to a place called Gstaadt where we arrived at 7.30. I read Byron all the time.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harold Nicolson Print: Book
'I send you some lines which he [Lord Byron] printed but did not publish, and which were handed about [italics] confidentially everywhere [end italics]. The usual consequence has happened, they appeared in one of the Sunday newspapers, and of course were copied on Monday a hundred times over. I send you what were in the "Morning Chronicle" with an unintelligible preface, and a paragraph which appeared the next day, by which you will see what a persecution Lady Byron is enduring. Sir Samuel says that the "Farewell" is a greater instance of wickedness than he thought was possible could have existed in human nature - and that the "Sketch from Private Life" is a miserable blackguard production without merit. - Indeed I cannot help thinking that he has hurt himself more than Lady Byron by abusing the person of a Maid Servant who was Nurse to Lady Milbanke, and who is grown old in faithful service to the Family'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Unknown
'I send you some lines which he [Lord Byron] printed but did not publish, and which were handed about [italics] confidentially everywhere [end italics]. The usual consequence has happened, they appeared in one of the Sunday newspapers, and of course were copied on Monday a hundred times over. I send you what were in the "Morning Chronicle" with an unintelligible preface, and a paragraph which appeared the next day, by which you will see what a persecution Lady Byron is enduring. Sir Samuel says that the "Farewell" is a greater instance of wickedness than he thought was possible could have existed in human nature - and that the "Sketch from Private Life" is a miserable blackguard production without merit. - Indeed I cannot help thinking that he has hurt himself more than Lady Byron by abusing the person of a Maid Servant who was Nurse to Lady Milbanke, and who is grown old in faithful service to the Family'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Unknown
'I send you some lines which he [Lord Byron] printed but did not publish, and which were handed about [italics] confidentially everywhere [end italics]. The usual consequence has happened, they appeared in one of the Sunday newspapers, and of course were copied on Monday a hundred times over. I send you what were in the "Morning Chronicle" with an unintelligible preface, and a paragraph which appeared the next day, by which you will see what a persecution Lady Byron is enduring. Sir Samuel says that the "Farewell" is a greater instance of wickedness than he thought was possible could have existed in human nature - and that the "Sketch from Private Life" is a miserable blackguard production without merit. - Indeed I cannot help thinking that he has hurt himself more than Lady Byron by abusing the person of a Maid Servant who was Nurse to Lady Milbanke, and who is grown old in faithful service to the Family'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Romilly Print: Unknown
'I send you some lines which he [Lord Byron] printed but did not publish, and which were handed about [italics] confidentially everywhere [end italics]. The usual consequence has happened, they appeared in one of the Sunday newspapers, and of course were copied on Monday a hundred times over. I send you what were in the "Morning Chronicle" with an unintelligible preface, and a paragraph which appeared the next day, by which you will see what a persecution Lady Byron is enduring. Sir Samuel says that the "Farewell" is a greater instance of wickedness than he thought was possible could have existed in human nature - and that the "Sketch from Private Life" is a miserable blackguard production without merit. - Indeed I cannot help thinking that he has hurt himself more than Lady Byron by abusing the person of a Maid Servant who was Nurse to Lady Milbanke, and who is grown old in faithful service to the Family'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Romilly Print: Unknown
'His [Byron's] "Farewell" is miserable poetry, and the allusions to the intimacy of marriage are not only ungentlemanly, but unmanly. "The Domestick Sketch" is powerfully written. I have seen in the reports on mendicity that there are persons who teach the arts of abuse - His Lordship seems to have studied in this school, with great success'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Richard Lovell Edgeworth Print: Unknown, either in newspaper or version circulated in society
'His [Byron's] "Farewell" is miserable poetry, and the allusions to the intimacy of marriage are not only ungentlemanly, but unmanly. "The Domestick Sketch" is powerfully written. I have seen in the reports on mendicity that there are persons who teach the arts of abuse - His Lordship seems to have studied in this school, with great success'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Richard Lovell Edgeworth Print: Unknown, either in newspaper or version circulated in society
'Have you read Lord Byron and his horrid Incantation? Can you doubt but that it is intended as a curse on his wife? Her nerves must be strong if she can read it without shuddering. He is in Italy travelling with two ladies in his Suite. In "Childe Harold" there is a novel enjoyment of a storm such I should think as a demon would feel, but I think that the stanza which describes the appearance of the morning after is beautiful. Sir Samuel says that he has lost his ear, and that his last poems are decidedly the worst he has written. Surely the man who wrote "Darkness" must be mad or nearly approaching to it. Is there not something exceptionally riduculous in the idea of the two men, who survived the rest, frightening each other to death at last by their ugliness, ''een of their mutual ugliness they died", that is the line I think'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Book
'Have you read Lord Byron and his horrid Incantation? Can you doubt but that it is intended as a curse on his wife? Her nerves must be strong if she can read it without shuddering. He is in Italy travelling with two ladies in his Suite. In "Childe Harold" there is a novel enjoyment of a storm such I should think as a demon would feel, but I think that the stanza which describes the appearance of the morning after is beautiful. Sir Samuel says that he has lost his ear, and that his last poems are decidedly the worst he has written. Surely the man who wrote "Darkness" must be mad or nearly approaching to it. Is there not something exceptionally riduculous in the idea of the two men, who survived the rest, frightening each other to death at last by their ugliness, ''een of their mutual ugliness they died", that is the line I think'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Book
'Have you read Lord Byron and his horrid Incantation? Can you doubt but that it is intended as a curse on his wife? Her nerves must be strong if she can read it without shuddering. He is in Italy travelling with two ladies in his Suite. In "Childe Harold" there is a novel enjoyment of a storm such I should think as a demon would feel, but I think that the stanza which describes the appearance of the morning after is beautiful. Sir Samuel says that he has lost his ear, and that his last poems are decidedly the worst he has written. Surely the man who wrote "Darkness" must be mad or nearly approaching to it. Is there not something exceptionally riduculous in the idea of the two men, who survived the rest, frightening each other to death at last by their ugliness, ''een of their mutual ugliness they died", that is the line I think'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Romilly Print: Unknown
'Have you read Lord Byron and his horrid Incantation? Can you doubt but that it is intended as a curse on his wife? Her nerves must be strong if she can read it without shuddering. He is in Italy travelling with two ladies in his Suite. In "Childe Harold" there is a novel enjoyment of a storm such I should think as a demon would feel, but I think that the stanza which describes the appearance of the morning after is beautiful. Sir Samuel says that he has lost his ear, and that his last poems are decidedly the worst he has written. Surely the man who wrote "Darkness" must be mad or nearly approaching to it. Is there not something exceptionally riduculous in the idea of the two men, who survived the rest, frightening each other to death at last by their ugliness, ''een of their mutual ugliness they died", that is the line I think'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Romilly Print: Book, Unknown
'While Darvall was with us this evening, Harry was anxious to show off his reading & so essayed a Piece. He was however so affected by mumps & Stammering, that his heart failed him & he declined to proceed. To please his mamma I read a dialogue with him. This he managed very well & so we read another then Harry was wound up & would have gone on forever, had I not let him gently down. I continued the entertainment by reading "The Execution of Montrose" & was by particular desire reading Byron's "Battle of Waterloo" when my sweet voice was closed by the arrival of Mr Hadley.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'Did not go out but read a little Byron & then played Bezique with Polly till it was bed time'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'I read a little Byron for my own amusement then a number of Aesop's Fables for the amusement of the youngsters. The evening seemed quite short in consequence of the employment & I was still busy reading when Polly & Sissy got back'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'Byron was a great genius. 'Don' Juan is a terrific work. But there is scarcely a page of it which does not show that an artistic conscience was not Byron’s strong point. . . . Not long since I re-read Quentin Durward. What a book of hasty expedients, adroit evasions of difficulties, and artistic ‘slimness’. '
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
I have a wonderful miniature edition of Byron’s 'Don Juan', illustrated, for you, with a staggering Victorian preface. I am bound to say, with all my modesty, that it takes me to find these things.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'I staid in and read Byron'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
From the Commonplace Book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of '“On a Cornelian Heart that was broken" - Lord Byron', beginning 'Ill-fated Heart! and can it be,/ That thou should'st thus be rent in twain?'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace Book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of '"To my Daughter" - Lord Byron'.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace Book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of '“Bright be the place of thy Soul” Lord Byron', beginning (first verse): 'Bright be the place of thy soul!/
No lovelier spirit than thine/
E'er burst from its mortal control,/
In the orbs of the blessed to shine.'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of '"If that high World" - Byron', beginning 'If that high world -- which lies beyond
Our own, surviving love endears...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of '"To Mary" - Byron', beginning 'RACK'D by the flames of jealous rage,
By all her torments deeply curst,
Of hell-born passions far the worst,
What hope my pangs can now assuage'.
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
From the Commonplace book of Mrs Austen of Ensbury: Transcription of four lines lines from the "Bride of Abydos" [Byron].
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Austen
'H.R. Smith then gave some account of Lord Byron's Life. Mrs Burrough [sic] read part of Mazzeppa [sic]. C.E Stansfield then read a critique of Byron's work showing he belonged to the Romantic Movement especially as it was a Recoil of the Human Spirit against Tyranny. His work is witty & vitriolic full of energy & passion. Mr Robson expounded Childe Harold to us and Alfred Rawlings read to us from the same poem 4th canto. Mr Robson then read The Isles of Greece and Mr Pollard a stirring passage the Giaour'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Celia Burrow Print: Book
'H.R. Smith then gave some account of Lord Byron's Life. Mrs Burrough [sic] read part of Mazzeppa [sic]. C.E Stansfield then read a critique of Byron's work showing he belonged to the Romantic Movement especially as it was a Recoil of the Human Spirit against Tyranny. His work is witty & vitriolic full of energy & passion. Mr Robson expounded Childe Harold to us and Alfred Rawlings read to us from the same poem 4th canto. Mr Robson then read The Isles of Greece and Mr Pollard a stirring passage the Giaour'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings Print: Book
'H.R. Smith then gave some account of Lord Byron's Life. Mrs Burrough [sic] read part of Mazzeppa [sic]. C.E Stansfield then read a critique of Byron's work showing he belonged to the Romantic Movement especially as it was a Recoil of the Human Spirit against Tyranny. His work is witty & vitriolic full of energy & passion. Mr Robson expounded Childe Harold to us and Alfred Rawlings read to us from the same poem 4th canto. Mr Robson then read The Isles of Greece and Mr Pollard a stirring passage the Giaour'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson Print: Book
'H.R. Smith then gave some account of Lord Byron's Life. Mrs Burrough [sic] read part of Mazzeppa [sic]. C.E Stansfield then read a critique of Byron's work showing he belonged to the Romantic Movement especially as it was a Recoil of the Human Spirit against Tyranny. His work is witty & vitriolic full of energy & passion. Mr Robson expounded Childe Harold to us and Alfred Rawlings read to us from the same poem 4th canto. Mr Robson then read The Isles of Greece and Mr Pollard a stirring passage the Giaour'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Print: Book
'H.R. Smith then gave some account of Lord Byron's Life. Mrs Burrough [sic] read part of Mazzeppa [sic]. C.E Stansfield then read a critique of Byron's work showing he belonged to the Romantic Movement especially as it was a Recoil of the Human Spirit against Tyranny. His work is witty & vitriolic full of energy & passion. Mr Robson expounded Childe Harold to us and Alfred Rawlings read to us from the same poem 4th canto. Mr Robson then read The Isles of Greece and Mr Pollard a stirring passage the Giaour'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson Print: Book
'[Letter]
'And now to tell you my opinion of the ''Corsair''. I think it beautiful beyond all his other works.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Wedgwood Print: Book
