Record Number: 14716

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Scott was the first great writer to draw me under his spell - the first to open for me the golden gates of poetry and romance. I can well remember the time when, a mere child, I would spend my half-holidays over "Ivanhoe" and "the Lay of the Last Minstrel", seated in rapt silence on a hassock in my father's library, in our old house at Bristol. I can well remember, too, how I would carry fragments of these enthralling stories to my fellows at school, resolved, with all the enthusiasm of boyhood, to make them willing or unwilling partakers of my pleasure. The men and women of whom I read and told were real figures to us then; and in the organization of our little school we lived out a kind of chivalrous life, even emulating, to the no small alarm of our elders, the scenes on sherwood forest, and the achievements at ashby-de-la-Zouche.'

Century:

1850-1899

Date:

Between 1870 and 1875

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Bristol
location in dwelling: 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

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

William Henry Hudson

Age:

Child (0-17)

Gender:

n/a

Date of Birth:

2 May 1862

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Schoolboy

Religion:

Anglican

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

England

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

Schoolfriends present at subsequent re-tellings.

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Sir Walter Scott

Title:

The Lay of the Last Minstrel

Genre:

Fiction, Poetry

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

read in situ
Read in father's library

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Source Information:

Record ID:

14716

Source:

Print

Author:

William Henry Hudson

Editor:

n/a

Title:

Sir Walter Scott

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1901

Vol:

n/a

Page:

ix

Additional Comments:

Author's Preface to his biography of Scott.

Citation:

William Henry Hudson, Sir Walter Scott, (London, 1901), p. ix, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=14716, accessed: 22 November 2024

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Additional Comments:

Not clear if actual reading or recitation involved in the re-tellings, rather than paraphrase.