Record Number: 16846

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 8 December 1841: 'I have not read Self formation, -- & [italics]have[end italics] read "Gaston de Blondeville". perhaps you don't know it, but I am, have been .. in all sorts of tenses -- a profound reader of romances. I have read Gaston [...] The fault of Mrs Radcliffe's preceeding works was her want of courage in not following back the instincts of our nature to their possible causes. She made the instinct toward the supernatural too prominent, to deny & belie the thing [...] Can anything be more irritating than the Key to her mysteries [...]? 'Just in proportion to the degree of this disagreeableness, is Gaston better & nobler in [italics]design[end italics]. Inasmuch as the ghost is real, it is excellent, but inasmuch as the book hath three volumes (or two) -- it is naught. It did hang upon me (with all its advantages as a ghost story) with a weight from which her preceeding works are sacred. It quite disappointed me! [...] the whole appeared to me heavy & not impressive -- &, what is strange, not so terrible with its actual marvels, as were the waxen mimicries of the Castle of Otranto.'

Century:

1800-1849

Date:

Between 1 Nov 1841 and 8 Dec 1841

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

city: London

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 Barrett

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

6 Mar 1806

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Writer

Religion:

Evangelical

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:

Ann Radcliffe

Title:

Gaston de Blondeville

Genre:

Fiction, History

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

1826; this edition also containing Radcliffe's narrative poem St Alban's Abbey; lyric poems, and a prefatory memoir by Thomas Noon Talfourd.

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

16846

Source:

Print

Author:

n/a

Editor:

Philip Kelley and Ronald Hudson

Title:

The Brownings' Correspondence

Place of Publication:

Winfield

Date of Publication:

1987

Vol:

5

Page:

184-185

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Philip Kelley and Ronald Hudson (ed.), The Brownings' Correspondence, (Winfield, 1987), 5, p. 184-185, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=16846, accessed: 22 November 2024

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Additional Comments:

None