Record Number: 5379
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
"And how fared the growth of this child's mind the while? Thanks to the care of his mother, who had sent him to the penny school, he had learnt to read, and the desire to read had been awakened. Books, however, were very scarce. The Bible and Bunyan were the principle; he committed many chapters of the former to memory, and accepted all Bunyan's allegory as bona fide history. Afterwards, he obtained access to 'Robinson Crusoe', a few old Wesleyan magazines and some battle histories. These constituted his sole reading, until he came up to London, at the age of fifteen, as an errand boy."
Century:1800-1849
Date:Between 1828 and 1833
Country:England
Timen/a
Place:county: Middlesex
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:Child (0-17)
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:29 May 1828
Socio-Economic Group:Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder
Occupation:Chartist poet and prose 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: Title:Pilgrim's Progress
Genre:Other religious, Fiction
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication Detailsn/a
Provenanceunknown
Source Information:
Record ID:5379
Source:Gerald Massey
Editor:Samuel Smiles
Title:Poetical Works
Place of Publication:n/a
Date of Publication:1861
Vol:n/a
Page:xi
Additional Comments:
The quotation comes from Samuel Smiles' introduction to Massey's "Poetical Works", entitled "A Biographical Sketch of Gerald Massey, 1851 (when he was only 23)".
Citation:
Gerald Massey, Samuel Smiles (ed.), Poetical Works, (1861), p. xi, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=5379, accessed: 22 November 2024
Additional Comments:
None
