'In A Young Man's Passage (1950), Mark Tellar recalls "confessing to his prep-school teacher that during the holidays he had read Conway's 'Called Back', together with Fergus Hume's 'The Mystery of the Hansom Cab' (1887), and stories by Miss M. E. Braddon, Mrs Henry Wood, and Ouida."'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mark Tellar Print: Unknown
"Robert Blatchford, growing up in Halifax in the 1860s, read from the penny library there Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Southey's Life of Nelson, Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop, and novels by Captain Marryat, the Brontes, and Miss M. E. Braddon."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Blatchford Print: Book
"Mr. Gladstone left aside the cares of state by reading ... [Mary Elizabeth Braddon]."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: William Ewart Gladstone 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
'[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
?There were no free libraries, so the younger hands joined with me in starting a "Literary Fund" of our own, towards which each paid three-halfpence a week. The papers and books bought for general reading were afterwards divided. In our little club the "Cornhill Magazine", from its start under Thackeray?s editorship, was read and discussed; also Dickens?s successive productions. I call to mind many serious books, as well as "Cassell?s Magazine" and the "London Journal", in which appeared Miss Braddon?s great story of "Henry Dunbar", then entitled "The Outcasts".?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Printers and compositors at Thomas Catling's place of work, Edward Lloyd's publishing house Print: Serial / periodical
'My mother used to read the novels of Miss Braddon and Mrs Henry Wood, and those in a series called "The Family Story Teller", that she got from the public library. My father got her "East Lynne" through a pub Literary Society, she read it over and over again. I read it when I was about nine. Heavens, the tears I gulped back over the death of Little Willie!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Polly Stamper Print: Book
'Now that we had gas I found it much easier and pleasanter to read. When I had read all my own periodicals I used to read Mother's literature. Sometimes she bought a novelette; the "Heartsease Library" was one, a penny per week. She was in the public library, too. I read "The Channings" by Mrs Henry Wood, and "Lady Audley's Secret" by Miss Braddon, and others by these two who were my mother's favourite authors.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Stamper Print: Book
'Now that we had gas I found it much easier and pleasanter to read. When I had read all my own periodicals I used to read Mother's literature. Sometimes she bought a novelette; the "Heartsease Library" was one, a penny per week. She was in the public library, too. I read "The Channings" by Mrs Henry Wood, and "Lady Audley's Secret" by Miss Braddon, and others by these two who were my mother's favourite authors.'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Polly Stamper Print: Book
'In respect of contemporary novels he [Tennyson] had a very catholic taste. Latterly he read Stevenson and George Meredith with great interest: also Walter Besant, Black, Hardy, Henry James, Marion Crawford, Anstey, Barrie, Blackmore, Conan Doyle, Miss Braddon, Miss Lawless, Ouida, Miss Broughton, Lady Margaret Majendie, Hall Caine, and Shorthouse. He liked Edna Lyall's Autobiography of a Slander, and the Geier-Wally by Wilhelmina von Hillern; and often gave his friends Surly Tim to read, for its "concentrated pathos." "Mrs Oliphant's prolific work," he would observe, "is amazing, and she is nearly always worth reading."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Unknown
'Read a part of a very good novel, "Married beneath him". Heard Harry read & then played a Game of Bezique with Polly'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
'Strangely, instead of Plato, took up "Lady Audley's Secret" this morning.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'It was during all these years that he [Conrad] read. Men at sea read an inordinate amount.[...] A large percentage of the letters received by writers from readers come from sailors either in the King's or the merchant service.[...]. It was Conrad's great good luck to be spared the usual literature that attends on the upringing of the British writer. He read such dog-eared books as are found in the professional quarters of ships' crews. He read Mrs. Henry Wood, Miss Braddon — above all Miss Braddon! — the "Family Herald", rarely even going as high as the late William Black or the pseudoliterary writers of his day.[...] Normally he would express the deepest gratitude to the writers of the "Family Herald" — a compilation of monthly novelettes the grammar of which was very efficiently censored by its sub-editors — and above all to Miss Braddon.[...]. Long after this period of seamanship Conrad read "The Orange Girl", a novel placed in the time of Charles II. He recognised in it, so he then said, all the qualities he had found in this novelist's work when he had been before the mast.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'Books read from Feby 16th/18
King Richard II Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream do.
Henry the Eighth do.
As You Like It do.
Ziska Marie Corelli
Lorna Doone R. D. Blackmore
Don Quixote de la mancha Vol II
(Miguel de Cervantes Savedra)
Food of the Gods H. G. Wells
Odette's Marriage Albert Delpit
A Walking Gentleman James Prior
The Making of a Marchioness F. H. Burnett
Vixen Mrs. Braddon
The Magnetic North Eliz. Robins
A Roman Singer Marion Crawford
In the Reign of Terror G. A. Henty
Songs of a Sourdough R. W. Service
Forest Folk James Prior
John Henry Hugh McHugh
The Inviolable Sanctuary G. A. Birmingham'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Henry Jones Print: Book
