Record Number: 21958

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'I have done rather an amusing paragraph or two for "Vanity Fair" on the "Inn Album". I have slated R.B. pretty handsomely.

Century:

1850-1899

Date:

Between 1875 and 6 Dec 1875

Country:

Scotland

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Edinburgh
county: Lothian

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:

Robert Louis Stevenson

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

13 Nov 1850

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Writer

Religion:

Uncommitted

Country of Origin:

Scotland

Country of Experience:

Scotland

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

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Robert Browning

Title:

The Inn Album

Genre:

Poetry

Form of Text:

Print: Book, Unknown

Publication Details

1875. London: Smith & Elder; Boston: J.R. Osgood & Co.

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

21958

Source:

Print

Author:

Robert Louis Stevenson

Editor:

Bradford A. Booth

Title:

The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879

Place of Publication:

New Haven and London

Date of Publication:

1994

Vol:

2

Page:

169

Additional Comments:

Letter 427, To Frances Sitwell, [? 6 December 1875], [17 Heriot Row]. Co-editor Ernest Mehew. The material in square brackets has been added by the editors.

Citation:

Robert Louis Stevenson, Bradford A. Booth (ed.), The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879, (New Haven and London, 1994), 2, p. 169, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=21958, accessed: 25 November 2024

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Additional Comments:

On p.169 the Editors’ Note 3 to Letter 427 reads: “RLS’s unsigned review of Browning’s "Inn Album" (‘Mr Browning Again!’), appeared in "Vanity Fair" for 11 December 1875. There is a MS draft of the first two paragraphs at Yale [= Yale University Library (Beinecke Library)]. It was partly reprinted in "Notes and Queries", 12 February 1944." Robert Browning’s "The Inn Album" (pub London: Smith & Elder, 1875; Boston: J.R. Osgood & Co., 1875) was a long dramatic poem written in the form of a series of monologues within a narrative. In a baffled review of it in The Nation, 20 January 1876, Henry James declared he found it “barely comprehensible”. It has been read by some as a satire on the poet by himself.