Record Number: 27275
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
'Since the age of five I have been a great reader [...]. At ten years of age I had read much of Victor Hugo and other romantics. I had read in Polish and in French, history, voyages, novels; I knew "Gil Blas" and "Don Quixote" in abridged editions; I had read in early boyhood Polish poets and some French poets, but I cannot say what I read on the evening [in September 1889] before I began to write myself. I believe it was a novel, and it is quite possible that it was one of Anthony Trollope's novels. It is very likely. My acquatance with him was then very recent. He is one of the English novelists whose works I read for the first time in English. With men of European reputation, with Dickens and Walter Scott and Thackeray, it was otherwise. My first introduction to English imaginative literature was "Nicholas Nickleby". It was extraordinary how well Mrs. Nickleby could chatter disconnectedly in Polish [...] It was, I have no doubt an excellent translation. This must have been in the year 1870.'
Century:1850-1899
Date:Between 1 Jan 1862 and 31 Dec 1867
Country:probably Russia (Ukraine)
Timen/a
Place:n/a
Type of Experience(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: Age:Child (0-17)
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:3 Dec 1857
Socio-Economic Group:Gentry
'Szlachta', or Polish landed gentry/nobility
child
Religion:Polish Catholic
Country of Origin:Poland
Country of Experience:probably Russia (Ukraine)
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santilane
Genre:Fiction
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication Details1717-1735. See additional comments re: abridged version
Provenanceunknown
Source Information:
Record ID:27275
Source:Joseph Conrad
Editor:Mara Kalnins
Title:A Personal Record
Place of Publication:London
Date of Publication:1998 (1912)
Vol:n/a
Page:73
Additional Comments:
n/a
Citation:
Joseph Conrad, Mara Kalnins (ed.), A Personal Record, (London, 1998 (1912)), p. 73, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=27275, accessed: 17 August 2024
Additional Comments:
Internal evidence indicates that Conrad would have read "Gil Blas" in the abridged illustrated French version (Hachette 1861) rather than the MS of the unpublished translation into Polish by his father, Apollo Korzeniowski.