Record Number: 154

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Weeton's reading becomes important in communication with friends, but also a point of conflict: when she visits her brother and his wife, they complain that she spends all her time reading, though she insists that she read very little ("only... Gil Blas, now and then a newspaper, two or three of Lady M. W. Montagu's letters, and few pages in a magazine'), and only because her hosts rose so late. Since her literacy is important as a sign of status, she repeatedly presents herself not as a reader of low status texts like novels but of travels, education works, memoirs and letters, including Boswell's "Tour of the Hebrides", the Travels of Mungo Park, and Mme de Genlis' work. She approves some novels, like Hamilton's "The Cottagers of Glenburnie", but generally finds them a "dangerous, facinating kind of amusement" which "destroy all relish for useful, instructive studies'.

Century:

1800-1849

Date:

Between 1807 and 1825

Country:

n/a

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:

Ellen Weeton

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

1776

Socio-Economic Group:

Servant

Occupation:

Governess

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

n/a

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

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

James Boswell

Title:

Tour of the Hebrides

Genre:

Geography / Travel

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

154

Source:

Print

Author:

Jacqueline Pearson

Editor:

n/a

Title:

Women's Reading in Britain 1750-1835. A Dangerous Recreation

Place of Publication:

Cambridge

Date of Publication:

1999

Vol:

n/a

Page:

183

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Jacqueline Pearson, Women's Reading in Britain 1750-1835. A Dangerous Recreation, (Cambridge, 1999), p. 183, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=154, accessed: 22 November 2024

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Additional Comments:

See Edward Hall (ed.) Miss Weeton: Journal of a Governess 1811-1825 (1939), Vol. II, p.33