Record Number: 21990

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

Lord Dufferin to Alfred Tennyson [1858]: 'For the first 20 years of my life I not only did not care for poetry, but to the despair of my friends absolutely disliked it, at least so much of it as until that time had fallen in my way. In vain my mother read to me Dryden, Pope, Byron, Young, Cowper and all the standard classics of the day, each seemed to me as distasteful as I had from early infancy found Virgil, and I shall never forget her dismay when at a literary dinner I was cross-examined as to my tastes, and blushingly confessed before an Olympus of poets that I rather disliked poetry than otherwise. 'Soon afterwards I fell in with a volume of yours, and suddenly felt such a sensation of delight as I never experienced before. A new world seemed to open to me, and from that day, by a constant study of your works, I gradually worked my way to a gradual appreciation of what is good in all kinds of authors.'

Century:

1800-1849, 1850-1899

Date:

unknown

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:

Helen Selina Sheridan Blackwood

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

n/a

Socio-Economic Group:

Royalty / aristocracy

Occupation:

Wife of 4th Baron Dufferin and Clanboye

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

n/a

Country of Experience:

n/a

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

Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood (reader's son)

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

George Gordon Lord Byron

Title:

n/a

Genre:

Poetry

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

21990

Source:

Print

Author:

Hallam Tennyson

Editor:

n/a

Title:

Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by his Son

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1897

Vol:

1

Page:

427

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by his Son, (London, 1897), 1, p. 427, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=21990, accessed: 22 November 2024

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Additional Comments:

None