Record Number: 19802

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 2 August 1911: 'Les Freres Karamazov is one of the greatest of novels [...] Have you read it? & the extraordinary speech of Ivan about Christ & Christianity & socialism which goes on without stopping for about 50 pages? I am halfway through. The Agamemnon is childish compared to it. I read it in trains & on steamers in inextricable fjords & on great lakes, very slowly, as befits it, in perpetual sunshine; I shall never finish it I think or perhaps it will never end. And Edgar [Woolf] is always sitting by me reading the Ordeal of Richard Feverel [...] We went up the coast from Gotenberg towards Norway [...] Then we wandered up a fjord to a detestable town called Uddevala [...] Then we took a toy steamboat & sailed over the lake [...] to Leksamd & thence here [Raatvik]. It was pleasant to sit on deck reading Les Freres at the rate of a page an hour, gliding past the shores from which the fair haired naked men & women perpetually waved their hands to us.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 1 Jul 1911 and 2 Aug 1911

Country:

Sweden

Time

n/a

Place:

other location: On board railway trains

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:

Leonard Woolf

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

25 Nov 1880

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Colonial civil servant (on leave)

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

Sweden

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

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Title:

Les Freres Karamazov

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

In French translation

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

19802

Source:

Print

Author:

n/a

Editor:

Frederic Spotts

Title:

Letters of Leonard Woolf

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1990

Vol:

n/a

Page:

166

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Frederic Spotts (ed.), Letters of Leonard Woolf, (London, 1990), p. 166, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=19802, accessed: 13 March 2025

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Additional Comments:

None