Record Number: 31821

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Meeting held at Gower Cottage, 20.II.’39
R. D. L. Moore, & subsequently H. Stevens in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
[...]
5. R. H. Robson told of The Stately Homes of Thames, + we heard of Bisham Abbey, Mapledurham, Ufton Court, of Jesuits hunted by Walsingham, of the incident of The Rape of the Lock, of Lovelace, Lady Place, Hurley, and Soames Forsyte.

6. H. R. Smith, dealing with the Story of the River, + passing lightly over the Danish incursions upstream, spoke of the thousand years in which the Thames had been in bounds. Weirs had been made by millers, navigation had been slow and perilous, the modern lock was a matter of the last hundred + fifty years. Twenty- six mills were named in Domesday Book[.] The Thames Conservancy had brought order out of chaos.

[...]

8. S. A. Reynolds read from Mortimer Menpes of warehouses + houseboats, the boat race + Henley Regatta, Kingfishers + quick backwaters, fishing + the vagaries of the towpath.

9. R. D. L. Moore gave us Literary Gleanings, touching on Spenser and Shelley, quoting from The Scholar Gypsy + Thyrsis, + reading Soames Forsyte’s thoughts in the early morning on the river, Kipling’s The River’s Tale, + Virginia Woolf’s astonishing account in Orlando of the great frost, when a girl dissolved into powder + fish were frozen twenty fathoms deep!

[...]

11. Muriel Stevens read a friend’s notes on Deptford + its river scenes.

12. A. B. Dilkes from Three Men in a Boat.


[Signed] S A Reynolds
27/3/93 [i.e. 27/3/39]'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

20 Feb 1939

Country:

England

Time

evening

Place:

city: Reading
county: Berkshire
specific address: Gower Cottage, Elm Road

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary reactive unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Reginald H. Robson

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

1877

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

n/a

Religion:

Quaker or associated with the Friends

Country of Origin:

n/a

Country of Experience:

England

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

Members of the XII Book Club

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Reginald H. Robson

Title:

The Stately Homes of Thames

Genre:

History, Geography / Travel, Arts / architecture

Form of Text:

Manuscript: Unknown

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

31821

Source:

Manuscript

Author:

n/a

Title:

XII Book Club Minute Book, Vol. 4 (1938-1943)

Location:

private collection

Call No:

n/a

Page/Folio:

37–9

Additional Information:

Although Victor Alexander was secretary to the XII Book Club at this time, it is clear from the handwriting that he was not the author of these minutes.

Citation:

XII Book Club Minute Book, Vol. 4 (1938-1943), private collection, 37–9, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=31821, accessed: 22 November 2024

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Additional Comments:

Material by kind permission of the XII Book Club. For further information and permission to quote this source, contact the Reading Experience Database (http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/contacts.php).