Record Number: 32407

---

Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'That is rather a fine article on Hakluyt in this week's Literary Supplement and a good deal of it might stand as an apology - in the Newman sense of course — for my hours spent on poor Mandeville. The quotation about the deer coming down to the water "as we rowed" is particularly attractive.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

26 Oct 1916

Country:

England

Time

morning: I think this likely, as the TLS would be delivered with the morning papers

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

---

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

Probably the Kirkpatricks, possibly other members of the household.

Additional Comments:

n/a

---

Text Being Read:

Author:

[n/a] [n/a]

Title:

Times Literary Supplement

Genre:

Essays / Criticism, Geography / Travel

Form of Text:

Print: Serial / periodical

Publication Details

The Times Literary Supplement (26 October 1916), pp. 505-6

Provenance

owned
probably by the Kirkpatrick household rather than Lewis himself

---

Source Information:

Record ID:

32407

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:

243

Additional Comments:

From a letter to his father, 27 October 1916. The quotation is from Sir Walter Raleigh's 'The Discovery of Guiana (1596), a text included in Hakluyt's monumental 'The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffics and Discoveries of the English Nation' (1598-1600), published by Bishop, Newberie & Barker in three volumes. (I have used modern spelling)

Citation:

C. S. Lewis, Walter Hooper (ed.), C. S. Lewis Collected Letters, (London, 2000), 1, p. 243, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=32407, accessed: 30 December 2024

---

Additional Comments:

More of the quotation: 'On both sides of this river we passed the most beautiful country that ever mine eyes beheld; and whereas all that we had seen before was nothing but woods, prickles, bushes and thorns, here we beheld plains of twenty miles in length, the grass short and green...; and still as we rowed, the deer came down feeding at the water's side as if they had been used to a keeper's call.' Hakluyt died 23 November 1616; I think the TLS article was part of a tercentenary commemoration. Lewis's only other reference to Mandeville in all his correspondence is in an earlier letter to Greeves (18 July 1916, v.1, p.214) from which the edition can be inferred: 'The travels of Sir John Mandeville: the version of the Cotton manuscript in modern spelling: with three narratives, in illustration of it, from Hakluyt's "Navigations, voyages and discoveries", edited by Alfred Pollard, Macmillan, 1900'. This explains Lewis's connecting the two writers in his mind. He clearly found Mandeville heavy going. His book is unreliable and fantastical; Raleigh's book, too, made exaggerated claims and contributed to the legend of El Dorado. I think Lewis would enjoy comparing and contrasting them.