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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Record Number: 1459


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Even before [Chaim Lewis] discovered the English novelists, he was introduced to Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Pushkin by a Russian revolutionary rag merchant who studied Dickens in the Whitechapel Public Library and read aloud from Man and Superman. Another friend - the son of a widowed mother, who left school at fourteen - exposed him to Egyptology, Greek architecture, Scott, Smollett, the British Musuem and Prescott's History of the Conquest of Peru'.

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

unknown

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

city: London
specific address: Whitechapel Public Library
other location: library

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


Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

a revolutionary Russian rag merchant

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

n/a

Socio-Economic Group:

Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder

Occupation:

Rag Merchant

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

Russian

Country of Experience:

England

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

n/a


Additional Comments:

rag merchant



Text Being Read:

Author:

Charles Dickens

Title:

n/a

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

read in situ


Source Information:

Record ID:

1459

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:

56

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, (New Haven, 2001), p. 56, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=1459, accessed: 30 December 2024


Additional Comments:

See Chaim Lewis, 'A Soho Address', (London, 1965)

   
   
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