Record Number: 1349

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'[Philip Inman] loved everything by Charlotte Bronte, partly for what she had to say about the class system: "Characters like Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe were humble individuals in the eyes of the world, with only their dogged determination and lack of 'frills' as weapons against the dash and arrogance of those haughty and wealthy rivals among whom their lot was cast". Yet he admired Jane Austen for an equal but opposite reason: "The world of which she wrote, in which elegant gentlemen of fortune courted gentle, punctilliously correct ladies in refined drawing rooms, was a remote fairy-tale country to me. Some day, I thought, perhaps I would get to know a world in which voices were always soft and modulated and in which lively and witty conversation was more important than 'brass'."'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

unknown

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

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:

Philip Inman

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

1892

Socio-Economic Group:

Labourer (non-agricultural)

Occupation:

poor background, became a Labour MP

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

England

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

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Charlotte Bronte

Title:

Villette

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

cheap reprint edition

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

1349

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:

49-50

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, (New Haven, 2001), p. 49-50, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=1349, accessed: 22 November 2024

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Additional Comments:

See Philip Inman, 'No Going Back' (London, 1952) pp.35-47