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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Record Number: 4934


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Growing up in a family that read newspapers only for sport and scandal, Vernon Scannell knew all the great prize fighters by age thirteen, "but I could not have named the Prime Minister of the day..." The history and geography he was taught at school were never related to contemporary events. Remarkably, Scannell had read widely about the last war: the poetry of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, Edmund Blunden's "Undertones of War", and Robert Graves's "Goodbye to All That". The Penguin edition of "A Farewell to Arms" so overwhelmed him that he tried to write his own Great War novel in a Hemingway style. But none of this translated into any awareness that another war might be on the way'.

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 1 Jan 1930 and 31 Dec 1939

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

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:

Vernon Scannell

Age:

Child (0-17)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

1922

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

writer

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

England

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

n/a


Additional Comments:

n/a



Text Being Read:

Author:

Edmund Blunden

Title:

Undertones of War

Genre:

Autobiog / Diary

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown


Source Information:

Record ID:

4934

Source:

Print

Author:

Jonathan Rose

Editor:

n/a

Title:

The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes

Place of Publication:

New Haven

Date of Publication:

2001

Vol:

n/a

Page:

362-3

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, (New Haven, 2001), p. 362-3, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=4934, accessed: 25 November 2024


Additional Comments:

See Vernon Scannell, 'Drums of Morning' (1992), pp. 73-8

   
   
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