Record Number: 32387

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'I should advise you to get the 2/6 volume containing Milton's minor poems, which I am now reading.... I am at "Comus", which is an absolute dream of delight. I am sure you would love it: it is like a play written on an episode from the Faerie Queene, all magic and distressed ladies and haunted woods.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 18 Sep 1916 and 12 Oct 1916

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

Great Bookham
Surrey
'Gastons'

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:

Clive Staples Lewis

Age:

Child (0-17)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

29 Nov 1898

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Student

Religion:

Church of England

Country of Origin:

Northern Ireland

Country of Experience:

England

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

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

John Milton

Title:

Paradise Regained

Genre:

Drama, Poetry, Biblical epic

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

Edited by F. E. Bumby

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

32387

Source:

Print

Author:

C. S. Lewis

Editor:

Walter Hooper

Title:

C. S. Lewis Collected Letters

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

2000

Vol:

1

Page:

225

Additional Comments:

From a letter to Arthur Greeves, 27 September 1916. in a letter to Greeves dated 12 October 1916 he writes:'"Comus" being finished', giving an endpoint to the date range. He does not refer to any of the other poems in the book.

Citation:

C. S. Lewis, Walter Hooper (ed.), C. S. Lewis Collected Letters, (London, 2000), 1, p. 225, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=32387, accessed: 30 December 2024

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Additional Comments:

This reading was not part of Lewis's formal study, but one of his 'week-end books' (Letter to Greeves, 12 October 1916, v.1, p. 232). His studies, which he loved, were purely literary; nevertheless, in the same letter, he remarks 'that I read seriously only on week-ends'! Hooper gives the publication date as 1910 and the editor as F. E. Bumby, but the British Library Calalogue's sole entry for this edition is in the Harrap Library series and dated 1927. Bumby was a lecturer in English at University College Nottingham from 1898 until 1917, so an edition published in 1910 is quite plausible.