Record Number: 1060

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

At age fourteen, Elizabeth Bryson read Sartor Resartus, a favorite book of her father, an impoverished Dundee bookkeeper. There she encountered "the exciting experience of being kindled to the point of explosion by the fire of words", words that expressed what she had always been trying to say: "It seems that from our earliest days we are striving to become articulate, stuggling to clothe in words our vague perceptions and questionings. Suddenly, blazing from the printed page, there ARE the words, the true resounding words that we couldn't find. It is an exciting moment... 'Who am I? The thing that can say I. Who am I, what is this ME?'. I had been groping to know that since I was three". She consumed Heroes and Hero-Worship, The French Revolution and Sartor Resartus with the same intoxication'.

Century:

1850-1899

Date:

1894

Country:

Scotland

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Dundee

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Elizabeth Bryson

Age:

n/a

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

1880

Socio-Economic Group:

Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder

Occupation:

daughter of a bookkeeper, later a physician

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

Scotland

Country of Experience:

Scotland

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Thomas Carlyle

Title:

Heroes and Hero-worship

Genre:

Politics, Philosophy

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

1060

Source:

Print

Author:

Jonathan Rose

Editor:

n/a

Title:

The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes

Place of Publication:

New Haven

Date of Publication:

2001

Vol:

n/a

Page:

46

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, (New Haven, 2001), p. 46, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=1060, accessed: 25 November 2024

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Additional Comments:

See Elizabeth Bryson, 'Look Back in Wonder' (Dundee, 1966), pp.80-81