'Philip Inman conveyed a ... specific sense of the uses of literacy for an early Labour MP. The son of a widowed charwoman, he bought up all the cheap reprints he could afford and kept notes on fifty-eight of them... There were Emerson's essays, Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Lamb's Essays of Elia, classic biogaphies (Boswell on Johnson, Lockhart on Scott, Carlyle on Sterling), several Waverley novels, Wuthering Heights, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, The Imitation of Christ, Shakespeare's sonnets, Tennyson, Browning, William Morris and Palgrave's Golden Treasury.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Inman Print: Book
'Her first WEA summer scool at the end of the First World War, was "a new and undreamt-of experience... We argued over Wilson's Fourteen Points and in literary sessions read and explored Browning's poems. It was a strange joy to browse overthe niceties of Bishop Blougram's Apology or to delve into the intricacies of The Ring and the Book... It was a month of almost complete happiness; a pinnacle of joy never to be quite reached again".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alice Foley Print: Book
'Her first WEA summer school at the end of the First World War, was "a new and undreamt-of experience... We argued over Wilson's Fourteen Points and in literary sessions read and explored Browning's poems. It was a strange joy to browse overthe niceties of Bishop Blougram's Apology or to delve into the intricacies of The Ring and the Book... It was a month of almost complete happiness; a pinnacle of joy never to be quite reached again".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alice Foley 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
[Robert Browning] 'published a sort of poem called Bells & Pomegranates in wh. there is no meaning at all.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Caroline Clive Print: Book
Geraldine Hodgson, The Life of James Elroy Flecker (1925), 'Reading aloud in the family circle was an established custom [in 1880s-90s] ... by a very early age, Roy had listened to large parts of Dickens, Longfellow, and Tennyson, and to much of Thackeray, George Eliot, Carlyle, and Browning.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: James Elroy Flecker Print: Book
'Sordello (1840) was undoubtedly the toughest assignment [of Browning's works]. When Douglas Jerrold venured on it while convalescing, he entered a state of panic that his illness had destroyed his reason; then, having passed the book from his bedside to a visiting friend, who also exhibited utter incomprehension, he collapsed relieved on his pillow with a cry of "Thank God!"!'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Douglas Jerrold Print: Book
In Retrospect of an Unimportant Life (1934), the Bishop of Durham Herbert Hensley Henson reminisced about Browning's "A Death in the Desert": 'Sixty years have passed since first I read it at Oxford, and then it seemed to me convincing and consoling ... To-day I find myself unable to discover any conclusion better fitted to satisfy Christian thought ...'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Hensley Henson
"In the early 1870s Browning frequently dined at the Chelsea home of the newly married Sir Charles Dilke. In 1872 he read there Red Cotton Nightcap Country (1873) -- 'at his own request'"
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning
Letter H 25 - Late November 1855 - "It is so off ... that we all should like that poem of the Arab physician best. - Fancy my endorsing the Athenaeum! Every word in the Athenaeum critique I agree with - for I am very stupid in making things out in poetry; and that Men & Women is to me simply a set of 50 Conundrums, of the most amazing & tormenting kind."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
The editor's footnote quotes a letter from Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Ellen Heaton: 24/11/1855 - "Much of my time in Paris was spent with Mr and Mrs Browning, who send you their kind regards. What a glorious book "Men and Women" is!" (Letters written to Ellen Heaton; sold in 1969; whereabouts unknown.)
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Dante Gabriel Rossetti Print: Book
I always have a profound impression that human beings have been much more like each other than we fancy since they got rid of their tails & that the great outbursts of speculation or art imply some special excitement more than a radical difference in people themselves. I have even a belief that if Browning had lived 200 years ago he would have been a small Shakespeare & perhaps Tennyson a second rate Milton though I agree that poor old Alfred has not quite the stuff in him.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
"I have been amusing myself down here with reading Browning - some of him for the first time; & I wonder more and more at his extraordinary power occasionally & at its waste in some directions. I think him marvellously good, when at his best."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
'While his widowed mother... worked a market stall, Ralph Finn scrambled up the scholarship ladder to Oxford University. He credited his success largely to his English master at Davenant Foundation School: "When I was an East End boy searching for beauty, hardly knowing what I was searching for, fighting against all sorts of bad beginnings and unrewarding examples, he more than anyone taught me to love our tremndous heritage of English language and literature". And Finnn never doubted that it was HIS heritage: "My friends and companions Tennyson, Browning, Keats, Shakespeare, Francis Thompson, Donne, Housman, the Rosettis. All as alive to me as thought they had been members of my family". After all, as he was surprised and pleased to discover, F.T. Palgrave (whose Golden Treasury he knew thoroughly) was part-Jewish'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ralph Finn Print: Book
"Prior to ... [her] marriage [in 1911], [Marie Stopes's] only sexual knowledge came from reading Browning, Swinburne, and -- ignoring her mother's advice -- Shakespeare's sonnets and 'Venus and Adonis', with the addition of novels, and ... Edward Carpenter's Love's Coming of Age."
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Marie Stopes Print: Book
'[Neville] Cardus read only boys' papers until quite suddenly, in adolescence, he dove into Dickens and Mark Twain. "Then, without scarcely a bridge-passage, I was deep in the authors who to this day I regard the best discovered in a lifetime" - Fielding, Browning, Hardy, Tolstoy, even Henry James. He found them all before he was twenty, with critical guidance from no one: "We must make our own soundings and chartings in the arts... so that we may all one day climb to our own peak, silent in Darien".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Neville Cardus Print: Book
''"My masters... in poetry, were Swinburne and Meredith among the living, Rossetti, Matthew Arnold and Robert Browning among the lately dead. To these I would add Edward Fitzgerald... In prose, the masters were Stendhal, Flaubert, Villiers del'Isle-Adam, Guy de Maupassant, Prosper Merimee and Walter Pater".'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John Masefield Print: Book
'my mother arrived in England with a great respect for culture, and eager to learn all she could. We find her struggling to read Browning and Tennyson and Shelley; battering her way with pride and tenacity through "La Petite Fadette"... But with all her respect for education...learning was never her strong point'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Maud du Puy Print: Unknown
'Uncle Richard had adored Ruskin, and worshipped Morris, and had slept for years with a copy of "In Memoriam" under his pillow. He told me once how he and his friends used to wait outside the bookshops in the early morning, when they heard that a new volume of Tennyson was to come out. He had read all Browning too, and all Wordsworth, and Carlyle, in fact nearly everything contemporary; and he constantly re-read the Classics in their own classic tongues... a triumph of timing occurred once when he was listening to the Thunderstorm in the Pastoral Symphony, and reading the thunderstorm in "Oedipus at Colonus", and a real thunderstorm took place!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Richard Litchfield Print: Book
'I learnt with interest all about David and read Browning's "Saul" with "an intelligent scripture mistess".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gwen Raverat Print: Book
Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, 18 April 1864: "I got Browning's plays from J[ohn].'s [La Farge] and have been reading them with deep interest."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to William James, 8 March 1870: "During the past month I have been ... reading among other things Browning's Ring and Book ... the President de Brosse's delightful letters, Crabbe Robinson's memoirs and the new vol. of Ste Beuve."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
'Finished "The Knightes Tale" and am now embarking on "Luria" - it's pretty awful."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
Henry James to Grace Norton, 26 July 1880: "One of my latest sensations was going one day to Lady Airlie's to hear Browning read his own poems ... He read them as if he hated them and would like to bite them to pieces."
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'As to what they read [at the Gower Street School in the 1880s] -- and [...] Lucy Harrison [headmistress] read aloud to them untiringly -- it must be what went deepest and lifted highest -- Shakespeare, Dante in Cary's translation, Blake, Wordsworth, and [...] [Miss Harrison's] own favourites, Emily Bronte, Christina Rossetti, the Brownings, Coventry Patmore [...] A reading which all [...] [Miss Harrison's] pupils heard often, and never forgot, was from Alice Meynell's "Preludes" of 1875 -- the sonnet "To a Daisy"'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Harrison, headmistress, Charlotte Mew, and other pupils at Gower Street school Print: Book
Harriet Martineau on her first acquaintance with Robert Browning's poetry, 'a wonderful event': 'Mr. Macready put "Paracelsus" into my hand, when I was staying at his house, and I read a canto before going to bed. For the first time in my life, I passed a whole night without sleeping a wink.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
'The unbounded expectation I [Harriet Martineau] formed from "Paracelsus"[...] was sadly disappointed when "Sordello" came out. I was so wholly unable to understand it that I supposed myself ill.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau 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
Taking a book of Browning's poems from his pocket he showed Louis a verse which he said he could not understand...bending forward, his hands clasped, he gazed expectant, while Louis read over the poem. Alas, for the hero worshipper! This is what the Master said: 'I'm damned if I know what it means. It reads like cat's meat to me.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 10 August 1836:
'I can tell you [...] of [John Kenyon's] having given himself a great deal of kind trouble in
finding the Countess of Essex for me and of my reading it and Paracelsus besides which he
also lent me. As to the play, its talent may be both felt & seen -- but felt & seen [italics]in
parts[end italics] [...] But have you seen Paracelsus? I am a little discontented even
[italics]there[end italics], & wd wish for more harmony & rather more clearness &
compression [...] but I do think that the pulse of poetry is full & warm & strong in it [...] There
is a palpable power! a height & depth of thought, -- & sudden repressed gushings of
tenderness which suggest to us a depth beyond, in the affections. I wish you wd read it, &
agree with me that the author is a poet in the holy sense. And I wish that some passages in
the poem referring to the divine Being had been softened or removed. They sound to me
daringly; and [italics]that[end italics] is not the appropriate daring of genius.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
John Stuart Mill to W. J. Fox, c.25 June 1833:
'I send "Pauline," having done all I could, which was to annotate copiously in the margin and
sum up on the fly-leaf. On the whole the observations are not flattering to the author --
perhaps too strong in the expression to be shown him'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Stuart Mill Print: Book
Walter Savage Landor to Robert Browning, c.18 March 1840:
'Three days have nearly slipped by me since I received your poem [Sordello] [...] You much
overrate my judgement, but whatever it is, you shall have it, before I have redd it so often as I
redd Paracelsus.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Savage Landor Print: Book
William Charles Macready, in diary entry for 3 August 1840:
'Read Browning's play [The Return of the Druses], and with the deepest concern I yield to the
belief that he will [italics]never write again[end italics] -- to any purpose. I fear his intellect is
not quite clear.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Charles Macready Manuscript: Unknown
Thomas Carlyle to Robert Browning, 21 June 1841:
'Many months ago you were kind enough to send me your Sordello; and now this day I have been looking into your Pippa passes, for which also I am your debtor [...] both Pieces have given rise to many reflections in me [...] you seem to possess a rare spiritual gift, poetical, pictorial, intellectual [...] to unfold which into articulate clearness is naturally the problem of all problems for you.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
Thomas Carlyle to Robert Browning, 21 June 1841:
'Many months ago you were kind enough to send me your Sordello; and now this day I have
been looking into your Pippa passes, for which also I am your debtor [...] both Pieces have
given rise to many reflections in me [...] you seem to possess a rare spiritual gift, poetical,
pictorial, intellectual [...] to unfold which into articulate clearness is naturally the problem of
all problems for you.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 15 July 1841:
'I have read the Bells & Pomegranates! -- "Pippa passes" .. comprehension, I was going to
say! [...] There are fine things in it -- & the presence of genius, never to be denied! -- At the
same time it is hard .. [italics]to understand[end italics] -- is'nt it?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
William Charles Macready, Jr. to Robert Browning, May 1842:
'My dear Mr Browning
'I was very much obliged to you, for your kind letter. I liked exceedingly the Cardinal and the dog. I have tried to illustrate the poem, and I hope that you will like my attempt.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Charles Macready Manuscript: Unknown
Joseph Arnould to Robert Browning, 27 November 1842:
'Finding it utterly impossible to express in prose the tumult of delight which your most noble
Dramatic Lyrics have given me I have ventured as you will see to express, however
imperfectly a tithe of what I felt in the following most crude and hasty lines [long poem in
heroic couplets follows letter] [...] I wish you could have seen the delight with which my wife
& myself devoured your "Pomegranate" & the ringing of "Bells" we set up afterwards [...] you
must let me grasp your hand as a friend for "Waring": which I read & reread with tears in my
eyes, I KNOW you can guess why [poem was based on Arnould and Browning's mutual friend
Alfred Domett].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph and Maria Arnould Print: Book
Joseph Arnould to Robert Browning, 27 November 1842:
'Finding it utterly impossible to express in prose the tumult of delight which your most noble
Dramatic Lyrics have given me I have ventured as you will see to express, however
imperfectly a tithe of what I felt in the following most crude and hasty lines [long poem in
heroic couplets follows letter] [...] I wish you could have seen the delight with which my wife
& myself devoured your "Pomegranate" & the ringing of "Bells" we set up afterwards [...] you
must let me grasp your hand as a friend for "Waring": which I read & reread with tears in my
eyes, I KNOW you can guess why [poem was based on Arnould and Browning's mutual friend
Alfred Domett].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Arnould Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 14 December 1842:
'Mr Browning's last "Bells and Pomegranates" I sigh over. There are fine things [...] But there
is much in the little (for the publication consists of only a few pages) which I, who admire
him, wish away -- impotent attempts at humour, -- a vain jangling with rhymes [...] and a
fragmentary rough-edgedness about the [italics]mounting[end italics] of some high thoughts.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Thomas Westwood to Elizabeth Barrett, 26 September 1843:
'Browning, I have read but little of -- indeed "Pippa passes" -- is almost the only poem of his
that I have seen -- the commencement I thought very beautiful, & the [italics]design[end
italics] of the poem altogether, -- but the interior is often so labyrinthine, that it is not the
easiest matter in the world to thread one's way [...] Turning over some numbers of the
Athenaeum, last night, I came upon a review of [R. H. Horne's Orion], which the first half-
dozen lines proclaimed to be yours. How pleasant it is, all of a sudden, to turn round a corner,
& be met by some familiar face [...]
'I read the "Brown Rosarie["] the other day to a young friend, an artist & he was so much
delighted with it, that he determined forthwith to execute a set of designs from it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Westwood Print: Book
Robert Browning, Sr to Thomas Powell, 11 March 1843:
'I hope the enclosed may be acceptable as curiosities. They were written by Robert when quite
a child. I once had nearly a hundred of them. But he has destroyed all that ever came in his
way, having a great aversion to the practice of many biographers in recording every trifling
incident that falls in their way [...] There was one amongst them "On Bonaparte" --
remarkably beautiful -- and had I not seen it in his own handwriting I never would have
believed it to have been the production of a child. It is destroyed.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning, Sr Manuscript: Unknown
Robert Browning to Christopher Dowson, Jr., 10 March 1844:
'Yesterday I read my play to [Charles Kean] and his charming wife (who is to take the
principal part) -- and all went off au mieux -- [italics]but[end italics] -- he wants to keep it till
"Easter next year" -- and unpublished all the time!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Manuscript: Unknown
Bryan Waller Procter to Robert Browning, ?26 March 1844:
'I got your play last night then read it with very great pleasure [...] Colombe is a charming
creature. The play [...] is [italics]full[end italics] of interest & capital situations -- the language
excellent. You have done well [...] to lay aside all mystery of language & speak direct'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Bryan Waller Procter Print: In proof copy
Joseph Arnould to Alfred Domett, c.8 November 1843:
'What a pity [Tennyson] has not the intense vigour of Robert Browning -- I still believe as
devoutly as ever in Paracelsus & find more wealth of thought & poetry in it than [in] any book
except Shakespeare. The more one reads the more miraculous does that book seem as the
work of a man of five and twenty'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Arnould Print: Book
John Westland Marston to Thomas Powell, c. October 1844:
'Mrs Marston has just read "Sordello" through. She accomplished it in 3 days, & pronounced it
not only intelligible but deeply interesting'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mrs Marston Print: Book
Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Robert Browning, 17 October 1847:
'It is now two or three months ago that I met, at the British Museum, with a Poem published in
1833, entitled "Pauline, a Fragment of a Confession," which elicited my warm admiration, and
which, having failed in an attempt to procure a copy at the publisher's, I have since
transcribed. It seems to me, in reading this beautiful composition, that it presents a noticeable
analogy in style and feeling to your first acknowledged work, "Paracelsus": so much so indeed
as to induce a suspicion that it might actually be written by yourself [goes on, very formally,
to ask whether this is the case].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dante Gabriel Rossetti Print: Book
Joseph Arnould to Alfred Domett, 16 July 1847:
'I find myself reading Paracelsus and the Dramatic Lyrics more often than any thing else in
verse'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Arnould Print: Book
Joseph Arnould to Alfred Domett, 16 July 1847:
'I find myself reading Paracelsus and the Dramatic Lyrics more often than any thing else in
verse'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Arnould Print: Book
'Browning was a little beyond her. Convinced that he was a great poet, she still found him a bore at times. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a major disappointment: she thought "Sonnets from the Portuguese" were beautiful in emotion but simply not good sonnets'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell Print: Book
His reading this summer included much Browning, Turgenev's Smoke and Kenneth Grahame's Golden Age ('which surely is the most beautiful book published for many years').
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, 15-17 July 1845:
'Yesterday you must have wondered at me for being in such a maze about the poems. It was assuredly the wine song & no other which I read of yours in Hood's [...] Do bring in all the Hood poems of your own -- inclusive of the Tokay, because I read it in such haste as to whirl up all the dust you saw, from the wheels of my chariot.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, letter postmarked 21 July 1845, following remarks on Browning's reading of her published juvenile writings:
'I leave my sins & yours gladly, to get into the Hood poems which have delighted me so -- & first to the St Praxede [sic] which is of course the finest & most powerful .. & indeed full of the power of life .. & of death [...] The "angel & child," with all its beauty & significance! -- and the "Garden Fancies" [...] with that beautiful & musical use of the word "meandering," [...] It does so mate with your "[italics]simmering[end italics] quiet" in Sordello, which brings the summer air into the room as sure as you read it [...] And the Laboratory is hideous as you meant to make it: -- only I object a little to your tendency .. which is almost a habit [...] of making lines difficult for the reader to read .. see the opening lines of this poem.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, letter postmarked 21 July 1845, following remarks on Browning's reading of her published juvenile writings:
'I leave my sins & yours gladly, to get into the Hood poems which have delighted me so -- & first to the St Praxede [sic] which is of course the finest & most powerful .. & indeed full of the power of life .. & of death [...] The "angel & child," with all its beauty & significance! -- and the "Garden Fancies" [...] with that beautiful & musical use of the word "meandering," [...] It does so mate with your "[italics]simmering[end italics] quiet" in Sordello, which brings the summer air into the room as sure as you read it [...] And the Laboratory is hideous as you meant to make it: -- only I object a little to your tendency .. which is almost a habit [...] of making lines difficult for the reader to read .. see the opening lines of this poem.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, letter postmarked 21 July 1845, following remarks on Browning's reading of her published juvenile writings:
'I leave my sins & yours gladly, to get into the Hood poems which have delighted me so -- & first to the St Praxede [sic] which is of course the finest & most powerful .. & indeed full of the power of life .. & of death [...] The "angel & child," with all its beauty & significance! -- and the "Garden Fancies" [...] with that beautiful & musical use of the word "meandering," [...] It does so mate with your "[italics]simmering[end italics] quiet" in Sordello, which brings the summer air into the room as sure as you read it [...] And the Laboratory is hideous as you meant to make it: -- only I object a little to your tendency .. which is almost a habit [...] of making lines difficult for the reader to read .. see the opening lines of this poem.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, letter postmarked 21 July 1845, following remarks on Browning's reading of her published juvenile writings:
'I leave my sins & yours gladly, to get into the Hood poems which have delighted me so -- & first to the St Praxede [sic] which is of course the finest & most powerful .. & indeed full of the power of life .. & of death [...] The "angel & child," with all its beauty & significance! -- and the "Garden Fancies" [...] with that beautiful & musical use of the word "meandering," [...] It does so mate with your "[italics]simmering[end italics] quiet" in Sordello, which brings the summer air into the room as sure as you read it [...] And the Laboratory is hideous as you meant to make it: -- only I object a little to your tendency .. which is almost a habit [...] of making lines difficult for the reader to read .. see the opening lines of this poem.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, 4 October 1845:
'Your spring-song is full of beauty as you know very well [...] so characteristic of you [...] that I was sorely tempted to ask you to write it "twice over," .. & not send the first copy to Mary Hunter notwithstanding my promise to her. And when you come to print these fragments, would it not be well if you were to stoop to the vulgarism of prefixing some word of introduction, as other people do, you know, .. a title .. a name? You perplex your readers often by casting yourself on their intelligence in these things [...] Now these fragments ... you mean to print them with a line between .. & not one word at the top of it .. now dont you? And then people will read
'"Oh, to be in England"
& say to themselves .. "Why who is this? .. who's out of England?" Which is an extreme case of course, -- but you will see what I mean .. & often I have observed how some of the very most beautiful of your lyrics have suffered just from your disdain of the usual tactics of writers in this one respect.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Manuscript: Sheet
Walter Savage Landor to Robert Browning, letter postmarked 10 November 1845:
'Before I have half re[a]d through your Dramatic Romances, I must acknowledge the delight I am receiving [...] What a profusion of imagery, covering what a depth of thought!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Savage Landor Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, 12 November 1845:
'I read Luria's first act twice through before I slept last night, & feel just as a bullet might feel [...] shot into the air & suddenly arrested & suspended. It ("Luria") is all life [comments in detail upon specific passages and phrases] [...] I am snatched up into "Luria" & feel myself driven on to the ends of the poet, just as a reader should.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Manuscript: Unknown
Joseph Arnould to Robert Browning, 25 April 1850:
'I have read re-read marked learned & [italics]]really[end italics] inwardly digested your last Poem [...] Well then I must say quite honestly that though your master hand has never dashed on the canvas the colours of poetry more grandly [...] yet, [italics]as a whole[end italics], it is less satisfactory to me than some of your earlier inspirations: call me limited, narrow, academic what you will, but I cannot quite like the grotesque, wonderful inventive & ingenious as it is of your opening; & then not so much on the ground of any mere individual dislike on my own part, as from the feeling that it may be a stumbling block to so many weaker brethren in the critic world'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Arnould Print: Book
'L[eonard]W[oolf] had undertaken to write a play for the "X" Society, which had recently read Robert Browning's Paracelsus.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: The 'X' Society Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 2 January 1903:
'I don't think my December list of books read equals yours. It includes however Bernard Shaw, Schopenhauer, Barry Pain, Browning, D'Aurevilly, Oscar Wilde, Flaubert, A Manual of Ethics & Shakespeare [...] I don't see how anyone, after reading Madame Bovary, can doubt which is the supremest of all novels -- though I now remember writing the same to you about Le Pere Goriot.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
'I remembered once, years before, when I was a child of thirteen, listening in half-fascinated terror to a mistress at St. Monica's reading "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came":'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'I have done rather an amusing paragraph or two for "Vanity Fair" on the "Inn Album". I have slated R.B. pretty handsomely.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book, Unknown
From Emily Tennyson's Journal, 1869:
'Before the end of February A. had read me all "The Coming of Arthur" finished, and was reading at night Browning's "Ring and the Book" -- "Pompilia" and "Caponsacchi" are the finest parts.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
From Emily Tennyson's Journal, 1871:
'Sept. 4th. We both read Browning's Balaustion. Heracles the free, the joyous, the strong, the self-sacrificer, a grand creation.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred and Emily Tennyson Print: Book
From Alfred Tennyson's letter-diary to his family (1868):
'Nov. 21st. Browning read his Preface to us last night, full of strange vigour and remarkable in many ways; doubtful whether it can ever be popular.'
Unknown
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning
'A programme of the works of Robert Browning arranged by the committee appointed at the previous meeting was then entered up [?]
Mrs Stansfield read a paper on some characteristics of the poet.
Mr Goadby read Garden Fancies & Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha.
Mrs Rawlings read Evelyn Hope.
Mr Edminson Phedippides
Mrs Smith May & Death & Prospice
A Rawlings One Word More.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings Print: Book
'A programme of the works of Robert Browning arranged by the committee appointed at the previous meeting was then entered up [?]
Mrs Stansfield read a paper on some characteristics of the poet.
Mr Goadby read Garden Fancies & Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha.
Mrs Rawlings read Evelyn Hope.
Mr Edminson Phedippides
Mrs Smith May & Death & Prospice
A Rawlings One Word More.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Ann Smith Print: Book
'A programme of the works of Robert Browning arranged by the committee appointed at the previous meeting was then entered up [?]
Mrs Stansfield read a paper on some characteristics of the poet.
Mr Goadby read Garden Fancies & Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha.
Mrs Rawlings read Evelyn Hope.
Mr Edminson Phedippides
Mrs Smith May & Death & Prospice
A Rawlings One Word More.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Ann Smith Print: Book
'A programme of the works of Robert Browning arranged by the committee appointed at the previous meeting was then entered up [?]
Mrs Stansfield read a paper on some characteristics of the poet.
Mr Goadby read Garden Fancies & Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha.
Mrs Rawlings read Evelyn Hope.
Mr Edminson Phedippides
Mrs Smith May & Death & Prospice
A Rawlings One Word More.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick J. Edminson Print: Book
'A programme of the works of Robert Browning arranged by the committee appointed at the previous meeting was then entered up [?]
Mrs Stansfield read a paper on some characteristics of the poet.
Mr Goadby read Garden Fancies & Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha.
Mrs Rawlings read Evelyn Hope.
Mr Edminson Phedippides
Mrs Smith May & Death & Prospice
A Rawlings One Word More.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Rawlings Print: Book
'A programme of the works of Robert Browning arranged by the committee appointed at the previous meeting was then entered up [?]
Mrs Stansfield read a paper on some characteristics of the poet.
Mr Goadby read Garden Fancies & Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha.
Mrs Rawlings read Evelyn Hope.
Mr Edminson Phedippides
Mrs Smith May & Death & Prospice
A Rawlings One Word More.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Allan Goadby Print: Book
'A programme of the works of Robert Browning arranged by the committee appointed at the previous meeting was then entered up [?]
Mrs Stansfield read a paper on some characteristics of the poet.
Mr Goadby read Garden Fancies & Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha.
Mrs Rawlings read Evelyn Hope.
Mr Edminson Phedippides
Mrs Smith May & Death & Prospice
A Rawlings One Word More.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Allan Goadby Print: Book
'A programme of the works of Robert Browning arranged by the committee appointed at the previous meeting was then entered up [?]
Mrs Stansfield read a paper on some characteristics of the poet.
Mr Goadby read Garden Fancies & Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha.
Mrs Rawlings read Evelyn Hope.
Mr Edminson Phedippides
Mrs Smith May & Death & Prospice
A Rawlings One Word More.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Pattie Stansfield Print: Book
'Browning's Sordello was introduced by some prefatory notes by H.M. Wallis read by E.E. Unwin. H.M. Wallis then read a paper describing the historical setting of the poem. Selections were read by Miss Marriage and C.I. Evans'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles I. Evans Print: Book
'Browning's Sordello was introduced by some prefatory notes by H.M. Wallis read by E.E. Unwin. H.M. Wallis then read a paper describing the historical setting of the poem. Selections were read by Miss Marriage and C.I. Evans'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Marriage Print: Book
'Browning's Sordello was introduced by some prefatory notes by H.M. Wallis read by E.E. Unwin. H.M. Wallis then read a paper describing the historical setting of the poem. Selections were read by Miss Marriage and C.I. Evans'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'A series of more or less five minutes essays or talks on various aspects of Browning by the folowing members were then given. viz C.I. Evans, E.E. Unwin, W.S. Rowntree, E.A. Smith, H.R. Smith & A. Rawlings. Mrs Robson, E.E. Unwin, & Kathleen Rawlings contributed songs & Margery Rawlings read Evelyn Hope'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Margery Rawlings Print: Book
'I have been trying to think how far I and my like, middle class schoolboys at the end of our pre-war education, were unquestioning patriots ready to respond to heroics. I think it is true that we were. We were reading now, or having read to us by our English master, the newly published sonnets of Rupert Brooke: 'Now, God be thanked who has matched us with His hour / And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleep.' 'Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead.' and 'Honour has come back, as a king, to earth.' 'If I should die, think only this of me: / That there's some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England.' We had been prepared for these heights: conditioned may be the right word. Tennyson and Browning (besides Shakespeare, of course) we read in the English lessons and learnt by heart; and it cannot be by chance that there comes to my mind unbidden 'Ulysses' - 'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield' and the well-known 'Epilogue to Asolando':
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harold Edward Leslie Mellersh and schoolmates Print: Book
'As for Sordello, I read it four times in youth, and never could make out who was speaking; yet I liked it - as one likes the moon, I fancy'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Unknown
'The following miscellaneous programme was then gone through. This change in the subject was caused by the imposibility of getting cheap copies of The Dynasts.
1. Pianoforte solo. Selection from Debusy [sic] Miss Bowman Smith
2. Reading. Modern Froissart Chronicles Mrs W.H. Smith
3. Reading. Migrations. Anon. Contrib. from Punch by Alfred Rawlings
4. Recitation. In a Gondola (Browning) Miss Cole
5. Song. 2 French Bergerettes. Mrs Unwin
6. Essay. 'The Pious Atrocity' R.B. Graham
7. Reading. Wedding Presents (Punch) Mrs Reynolds
8. Song. My dear Soul. Mrs Robson
9. Reading 'How the Camel got his Hump' W.H. Smith
10. Song. The Camel's hump. E.E. Unwin
11. Reading. The Man of the Evening (A.A. Milne Punch) Miss R. Wallis
12. Song. Hebrides Galley Song. Miss Bowman Smith
13. Reading. Arms of Wipplecrack S.A. Reynolds
14. Reading. Joints in the Armour. E.V. Lucas. H.M. Wallis
15. Song-Chant Folk Song [ditto]
16. Essay. 'Bad morality & bad art' R.H. Robson
17. Song. Winter. Miss Bowman Smith
18. Essay 'Etaples & the air raids' H.R. Smith
19. Recitation. These new fangled ways. E.E. Unwin
20. Song. Goodnight. Mrs Robson.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Muriel Bowman-Smith Print: Book
'the rest of the evening was devoted to Browning's The Ring & the Book. Henry M. Wallis read a masterly paper in introduction. This enabled those who had not read the long poem to understand the story & the way in which Browning treated the story. The success of the evening was largely due to this introduction. The story from several standpoints was then dealt with by members of the club.
R.H. Robson read a description of the 1st Guido
A. Rawlings read extracts from the book Capansacchi
Mrs Evans [ditto] Pompilia
Mr Gidham [ditto] Pope
Mr Robson [ditto] Guido in prison'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson Print: Book
'the rest of the evening was devoted to Browning's The Ring & the Book. Henry M. Wallis read a masterly paper in introduction. This enabled those who had not read the long poem to understand the story & the way in which Browning treated the story. The success of the evening was largely due to this introduction. The story from several standpoints was then dealt with by members of the club.
R.H. Robson read a description of the 1st Guido
A. Rawlings read extracts from the book Capansacchi
Mrs Evans [ditto] Pompilia
Mr Gidham [ditto] Pope
Mr Robson [ditto] Guido in prison'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings Print: Book
'the rest of the evening was devoted to Browning's The Ring & the Book. Henry M. Wallis read a masterly paper in introduction. This enabled those who had not read the long poem to understand the story & the way in which Browning treated the story. The success of the evening was largely due to this introduction. The story from several standpoints was then dealt with by members of the club.
R.H. Robson read a description of the 1st Guido
A. Rawlings read extracts from the book Capansacchi
Mrs Evans [ditto] Pompilia
Mr Gidham [ditto] Pope
Mr Robson [ditto] Guido in prison'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Gidham Print: Book
'the rest of the evening was devoted to Browning's The Ring & the Book. Henry M. Wallis read a masterly paper in introduction. This enabled those who had not read the long poem to understand the story & the way in which Browning treated the story. The success of the evening was largely due to this introduction. The story from several standpoints was then dealt with by members of the club.
R.H. Robson read a description of the 1st Guido
A. Rawlings read extracts from the book Capansacchi
Mrs Evans [ditto] Pompilia
Mr Gidham [ditto] Pope
Mr Robson [ditto] Guido in prison'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Evans Print: Book
'the rest of the evening was devoted to Browning's The Ring & the Book. Henry M. Wallis read a masterly paper in introduction. This enabled those who had not read the long poem to understand the story & the way in which Browning treated the story. The success of the evening was largely due to this introduction. The story from several standpoints was then dealt with by members of the club.
R.H. Robson read a description of the 1st Guido
A. Rawlings read extracts from the book Capansacchi
Mrs Evans [ditto] Pompilia
Mr Gidham [ditto] Pope
Mr Robson [ditto] Guido in prison'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'The subject of the meeting was 'Gardens' & all members were asked to bring contributions [...] The following is a list of the contributions.
C.E. Stansfield a reading from 'Paradise Lost' followed by a short essay entitled "The Lost Art of Living - A Gardener's Life"
Mary Hayward. Song "Now sleeps the crimson petals"
C.I. Evans. Two Readings. Of an Orchard. Higson. The Apple. John Burrough.
Mrs Robson. Song. "Thank God for a Garden"
Miss Cole. Recitation. 'The Flower's Name'. Browning.
E.E. Unwin. Song. "Come into the Garden Maud"
Mrs Evans. Reading from "The Small Garden Useful" dealing with the Cooking of Vegetables.
C.I. Evans. Reading. "My Garden"
interval for supper
Miss Wallis. Reading by Request 'My Garden' - a parody
Miss Cole. Recitation. Gardens. by Kipling
Miss Hayward. Song.
R.H. Robson Violin Solo
C.I. Evans. Reading. A ballad of trees & the master
Mrs Robson. Song.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Celia Cole Print: Book
'Dined with 'A' Company. Read the Browning Love Letters at night, in bed. Disappointed, though not displeased. Felt I could have written a better love letter myself in spite of my tender years - and lack of experience.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Lindsay Mackay Print: Book
'Church parade. Cricket against Royal Scots. Did rather well. Won by 1 run. Reading the Browning Love letters in my spare time.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Lindsay Mackay Print: Book
'Sunday 12th. August. Church parade. New minister. Rather enjoyed the sermon. Easy afternoon. Finished Vol. 1 of the Browning Letters — rather a feat for Active Service!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Lindsay Mackay Print: Book
'Meant to go to church, but couldn't find it, so had a fine lazy day instead. Read Browning.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Lindsay Mackay Print: BookManuscript: Letter, Sheet
'Finished the Browning Letters - one of the biggest feats of the war! It has taken a tremendous effort of will on my part to get through them. Felt that if I had been in love I could have written better letters than those!!'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Lindsay Mackay Print: Book
'Meeting held at 68 Northcourt Avenue
20th III 1935
Howard R. Smith in the chair
1. Minutes of last Meeting were read & approved
[...]
4. The Program of anonymous readings was then proceeded with[;] members reading in the
order in which they sat round the room. An interval of about 2 minutes at the end of each
piece was allowed for cogitation at the end of which the reader anounced the authors name &
the work from which he had read. Identification proved unexpectedly dificult[.] No one reading
was identified by everyone & the highest scorer only guessed eight authors & 4 & ½ works
Reader Author Work
E. B. Castle Plato Phaedo
M. S. W. Pollard R. Browning Pictures in Florence
E. Goadby Saml. Butler Notes
M. E. Robson Flecker Hassan
R. H. Robson Belloc Eyewitness
E. C. Stevens M. Arnold Self dependance
E. D. Brain B. Shaw Pre. to Back to Methuselah
M. Castle T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus
A. Rawlings R. Browning Pheidippides
J. Rawlings G. Eliot Middlemarch
E. B. Smith Lewis Carroll Phantasmagoria
F. E. Reynolds Tennyson Locksley Hall
S. A. Reynolds E. B. Browning Lady Geraldine’s Courtship
H. R. Smith Chas. Kingsley Westward Ho
F. E. Pollard Shelley Prometheus Unbound'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard
'Meeting held at 68 Northcourt Avenue
20th III 1935
Howard R. Smith in the chair
1. Minutes of last Meeting were read & approved
[...]
4. The Program of anonymous readings was then proceeded with[;] members reading in the
order in which they sat round the room. An interval of about 2 minutes at the end of each
piece was allowed for cogitation at the end of which the reader anounced the authors name &
the work from which he had read. Identification proved unexpectedly dificult[.] No one reading
was identified by everyone & the highest scorer only guessed eight authors & 4 & ½ works
Reader Author Work
E. B. Castle Plato Phaedo
M. S. W. Pollard R. Browning Pictures in Florence
E. Goadby Saml. Butler Notes
M. E. Robson Flecker Hassan
R. H. Robson Belloc Eyewitness
E. C. Stevens M. Arnold Self dependance
E. D. Brain B. Shaw Pre. to Back to Methuselah
M. Castle T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus
A. Rawlings R. Browning Pheidippides
J. Rawlings G. Eliot Middlemarch
E. B. Smith Lewis Carroll Phantasmagoria
F. E. Reynolds Tennyson Locksley Hall
S. A. Reynolds E. B. Browning Lady Geraldine’s Courtship
H. R. Smith Chas. Kingsley Westward Ho
F. E. Pollard Shelley Prometheus Unbound'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings Print: Book
'I am sorry to say Sir E. [Eldon Gorst, British Agent and Consul General] has been rather bad this last week: a touch of the sun it is thought. I play the piano to him of an afternoon and read a little — Browning or Gibbon.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene 22. II 1937
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read (by F.E.P. in regretted absence of the Secretary) & approved.
[...]
4. Howard R. Smith introduced Browning with a biographical sketch.
5. F. E. Pollard read The Italian in England.
6. S. A. Reynolds read a paper by H. M. Wallis on ‘The Bishop orders his Tomb’; & Rosamund
Wallis read the poem.
7. F. E. Pollard commented on various aspects of Browning’s works, & at intervals the following
were read:-
‘The Patriot’ by E. B. Castle.
Parts of ‘By the fireside’ & ‘Holy Cross Day’ by R. H. Robson.
Part of ‘Rabbi ben Ezra’, by C. E. Stansfield.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard
'Meeting held at Oakdene 22. II 1937
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read (by F.E.P. in regretted absence of the Secretary) & approved.
[...]
4. Howard R. Smith introduced Browning with a biographical sketch.
5. F. E. Pollard read The Italian in England.
6. S. A. Reynolds read a paper by H. M. Wallis on ‘The Bishop orders his Tomb’; & Rosamund
Wallis read the poem.
7. F. E. Pollard commented on various aspects of Browning’s works, & at intervals the following
were read:-
‘The Patriot’ by E. B. Castle.
Parts of ‘By the fireside’ & ‘Holy Cross Day’ by R. H. Robson.
Part of ‘Rabbi ben Ezra’, by C. E. Stansfield.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Manuscript: Unknown
'Meeting held at Oakdene 22. II 1937
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read (by F.E.P. in regretted absence of the Secretary) & approved.
[...]
4. Howard R. Smith introduced Browning with a biographical sketch.
5. F. E. Pollard read The Italian in England.
6. S. A. Reynolds read a paper by H. M. Wallis on ‘The Bishop orders his Tomb’; & Rosamund
Wallis read the poem.
7. F. E. Pollard commented on various aspects of Browning’s works, & at intervals the following
were read:-
‘The Patriot’ by E. B. Castle.
Parts of ‘By the fireside’ & ‘Holy Cross Day’ by R. H. Robson.
Part of ‘Rabbi ben Ezra’, by C. E. Stansfield.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard
'Meeting held at Oakdene 22. II 1937
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read (by F.E.P. in regretted absence of the Secretary) & approved.
[...]
4. Howard R. Smith introduced Browning with a biographical sketch.
5. F. E. Pollard read The Italian in England.
6. S. A. Reynolds read a paper by H. M. Wallis on ‘The Bishop orders his Tomb’; & Rosamund
Wallis read the poem.
7. F. E. Pollard commented on various aspects of Browning’s works, & at intervals the following
were read:-
‘The Patriot’ by E. B. Castle.
Parts of ‘By the fireside’ & ‘Holy Cross Day’ by R. H. Robson.
Part of ‘Rabbi ben Ezra’, by C. E. Stansfield.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edgar Castle
'Meeting held at Oakdene 22. II 1937
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read (by F.E.P. in regretted absence of the Secretary) & approved.
[...]
4. Howard R. Smith introduced Browning with a biographical sketch.
5. F. E. Pollard read The Italian in England.
6. S. A. Reynolds read a paper by H. M. Wallis on ‘The Bishop orders his Tomb’; & Rosamund
Wallis read the poem.
7. F. E. Pollard commented on various aspects of Browning’s works, & at intervals the following
were read:-
‘The Patriot’ by E. B. Castle.
Parts of ‘By the fireside’ & ‘Holy Cross Day’ by R. H. Robson.
Part of ‘Rabbi ben Ezra’, by C. E. Stansfield.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald H. Robson
'Meeting held at Oakdene 22. II 1937
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read (by F.E.P. in regretted absence of the Secretary) & approved.
[...]
4. Howard R. Smith introduced Browning with a biographical sketch.
5. F. E. Pollard read The Italian in England.
6. S. A. Reynolds read a paper by H. M. Wallis on ‘The Bishop orders his Tomb’; & Rosamund
Wallis read the poem.
7. F. E. Pollard commented on various aspects of Browning’s works, & at intervals the following
were read:-
‘The Patriot’ by E. B. Castle.
Parts of ‘By the fireside’ & ‘Holy Cross Day’ by R. H. Robson.
Part of ‘Rabbi ben Ezra’, by C. E. Stansfield.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald H. Robson
'Meeting held at Oakdene 22. II 1937
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read (by F.E.P. in regretted absence of the Secretary) & approved.
[...]
4. Howard R. Smith introduced Browning with a biographical sketch.
5. F. E. Pollard read The Italian in England.
6. S. A. Reynolds read a paper by H. M. Wallis on ‘The Bishop orders his Tomb’; & Rosamund
Wallis read the poem.
7. F. E. Pollard commented on various aspects of Browning’s works, & at intervals the following
were read:-
‘The Patriot’ by E. B. Castle.
Parts of ‘By the fireside’ & ‘Holy Cross Day’ by R. H. Robson.
Part of ‘Rabbi ben Ezra’, by C. E. Stansfield.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield
'... as we drifted gaily down the sparkling river [Tigris] in perfect autumnal weather, I thought of Browning's [italics] Wanderers [end italics] .... For on my kelek I had my [italics] Book of Verses [end italics], my Loaf of Bread and even my Jug of Wine and I only lacked some visionary "Thou" beside me.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William Collis Spackman Print: Book
'With Shelley I shared the sadness of human frailty. Except for some of his shorter poems, Browning was too involved for me, while I restricted my reading of Shakespeare to his Sonnets. But the most ravishing of all was Keats. While others gave stimulus to mind and emotion, Keats was like champagne to the senses and kept the joyous bubbles winking at the brim.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vero Walter Garratt Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue: 18. 3. 40.
Sylvanus A. Reynolds in the chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved
2. We began our meeting with four readings taken before the interval. These
readings were love scenes from the following books or poems:
Chas. Kingsley’s “Westward Ho”: read by Elsie Sikes
Jas. Hilton’s “Goodbye Mr. Chips”: [read by] M Dilkes
J. R. Lowell’s “Coortin’”: [read by] C. E. Stansfield
Rev. W. Barnes’s “Bit o’ Sly Coortin’”: [read by] S. A. Reynolds
These readings stirred the amorous instincts of certain of our members who
regaled the club with courting stories. [...]
5. We then [...] listened to readings from
Shakespeare’s: Merchant of Venice, by R & M Robson
Browning’s: By the Fireside, by F. E. Pollard
F. Stockton’s: Squirrel Inn, by Rosamund Wallis
H. M. Wallis’s: Mistakes of Miss Manisty, by H. R. Smith
Thackeray’s: The Rose and the Ring, by Muriel Stevens
6. These duly received their meed of comment & appreciation, and we then took
our leave, two or three of the husbands going home, we suspect, to curtain
lectures.
[signed as a true record:] F. E. Pollard
17.IV.40.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis E. Pollard
During my final year at school I was selected to represent the school in a competition held at the Browning Hall, Walworth for elocution prizes. I recited "The Laboratory" by Robert Browning and won second prize with 91 marks out of 100, the winner getting 92.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: E Robinson Manuscript: Sheet
‘On return to England [from Jena], by the way, I renewed my acquaintance
with R.B. [Robert Browning]. The last line of Mr Sludge the Medium—“yet
there is something in it, tricks and all”—converted me, and since them I
have used no other. I wish we could recall him from the stars and get him
to write a Dramatic Idyll or something, giving a soliloquy of the feelings and
motives … that must be going through the poor Kaiser’s mind at present.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Hamilton Sorley Print: Book
After listing some canonical writers discussed by Pound and whom Ford had never read he then
goes on to write: 'On the other hand I possess a certain patience and, if I feel that I am going to
get anything out of it I can read in a prose or verse book for an infinite space of time. At
school I was birched into reading Vergil, who always excited in me the same hostility that was
aroused by Goethe's FAUST. Homer was also spoiled for me a good deal by the schoolmaster.
The schoolmaster did not contrive however to spoil for me Euripides. I have a good part of the
BACCHAE and some of the ALKESTIS still by heart. But so, indeed, I have Books Two and nine of
the AENEID, so that those mnemonics form no criterion; But for myself I have, I have read most
of the books recommended for the formation of my mind in HOW TO READ—excepting of course
"CONFUCIUS in full..." [...] I have read Doughty's DAWN IN BRITAIN, an epic in twelve books.
And SORDELLO only last night. And CANTO'S.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford Print: Book
