Record Number: 29217
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
'April 1st. 1918. We came out of the line at night. Back to Arras. H.Q. in cellars in the Hotel de Ville, or Town Hall. Poor Arras! It is in a worse condition than ever before. All our new erections, Y.M.C.A., huts, transport lines, and canteens and officers club are no more. I salvaged a copy of Jones' "Life of R. Browning" from the wreckage of the Y.M.C.A. Library. Our quarters are damp, and they smell. There are also rats, and the place is dark. Some of the Tommies had had a good time. There has been a bit of looting of such wine cellars and estaminets as previous bombardments had left.'
Century:1900-1945
Date:1 Apr 1918
Country:France
Timedaytime
Place:city: Arras
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:Adult (18-100+)
Gender:n/a
Date of Birth:1896
Socio-Economic Group:Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation:Captain, 11th Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
Religion:n/a
Country of Origin:Scotland
Country of Experience:France
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher
Genre:Essays / Criticism, Biography, Ephemera
Form of Text:Print: BookManuscript: Letter, Sheet
Publication Detailsn/a
Provenancestolen
Salvaged from wrecked YMCA library, Arras.
Source Information:
Record ID:29217
Source - Manuscript:Other
Information:
Digitized version of manuscript.
Additional Information:
The Diaries of Robert Lindsay Mackay, online at http://www.firstworldwar.com/diaries/rlm7.htm.
Citation:
Digitized version of manuscript., http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=29217, accessed: 24 November 2024
Additional Comments:
Mackay seems to be confused about the book he salvaged. It was either a critical work by Henry Jones with a different title, or one of several works entitled "The Life Robert Browning" which he misattributed to Jones. The YMCA library at Arras had been operated by the writer E. W. Hornung, and had been abandoned a week earlier when all non-essential forces were evacuated from Arras under German bombardment associated with Operation Michael. For Hornung's own reading experiences at the Library, see the RED entries under his name. For fuller accounts, see Hornung's "Memoirs of a Camp Follower" (1919) and Edmund G. C. King, "E. W. Hornung's Unpublished 'Diary', the YMCA, and the Reading Soldier in the First World War," English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 57, no. 3 (2014), 361-87.
