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Reading: An Essay
1927. Walpole wrote horror novels that tended more towards the psychological rather than supernatural, with a brooding underlying mysticism. The book It would be flattering to my intelligence were I able to make this Essay a learned and analytical description of any reader's proper mental processes. I have seen such books, books that point out so clearheadedly what must be read at eight, eighteen, twenty-eight, with careful lists of the fifty best volumes, and cold and impassive descriptions of the world's most famous writers. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1926
1 person is currently reading
32 people want to read
About the author
Hugh Walpole
412 books85 followersSir Hugh Seymour Walpole was an English novelist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large readership in the United Kingdom and North America. A best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s, his works have been neglected since his death.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 30, 2012
This book was bought for me by a friend for my birthday a few years ago. It is one of a series of essays edited by JB Priestley and published in a limited edition by Jarrolds publishers in 1926. It is a signed copy , one of a limited edition of 150, this is number 88. I only give all these details to attempt to express how wonderful was my experience last night as I re-read it.
The essay itself is divided into parts in which Walpole reflects on three aspects he sees as stages on a reading life; Reading for fun, Reading for education, Reading for love. The progression might not be quite as clear as that for most of us and indeed we may have quite different ideas but the essay was fun to read and fascinating to get a very particular view from a man with strong opinions.
His descriptions of ' libraries i have known ' or ' readers i have encountered ' was one of those occasions where I smiled as I recognized people I know or indeed saw myself lurking in the background. He mentions at one point the business man who bought books not by their content but by their size so as to fit in the shelving provided. This reminded me of the horror of a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, one of my favourite places on earth where there are 37 bookshops, in which they sell ornate books by the foot. Travesty, they ought to be ashamed I always think. Anyway the book is an easy read and takes hardly anytime at all.
To return to where I started though, the experience of reading this lovely old book. The fragrance of the pages, the feel of the paper, the realization of the author having touched it when he signed, all these things are a fantastic attractions for me. One of the aspects of older books I love is the reflecting on the number of other readers who have been wowed by its contents and the history of its various owners. With this edition and indeed with the essay on Playgoing by James Agate that I shall read tonight I know that I am on virgin territory. Though both books are 85 years old no-one had read them when they came into my posession. The reason I know this, I had to cut the pages as I read. Absolutely wonderful for me though, having mentioned in his essay those who only buy for affect, it is supremely ironic that Walpole himself was quite clearly a casualty of this odd misplaced love which is all about owning and not about reading and enjoying.
The essay itself is divided into parts in which Walpole reflects on three aspects he sees as stages on a reading life; Reading for fun, Reading for education, Reading for love. The progression might not be quite as clear as that for most of us and indeed we may have quite different ideas but the essay was fun to read and fascinating to get a very particular view from a man with strong opinions.
His descriptions of ' libraries i have known ' or ' readers i have encountered ' was one of those occasions where I smiled as I recognized people I know or indeed saw myself lurking in the background. He mentions at one point the business man who bought books not by their content but by their size so as to fit in the shelving provided. This reminded me of the horror of a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, one of my favourite places on earth where there are 37 bookshops, in which they sell ornate books by the foot. Travesty, they ought to be ashamed I always think. Anyway the book is an easy read and takes hardly anytime at all.
To return to where I started though, the experience of reading this lovely old book. The fragrance of the pages, the feel of the paper, the realization of the author having touched it when he signed, all these things are a fantastic attractions for me. One of the aspects of older books I love is the reflecting on the number of other readers who have been wowed by its contents and the history of its various owners. With this edition and indeed with the essay on Playgoing by James Agate that I shall read tonight I know that I am on virgin territory. Though both books are 85 years old no-one had read them when they came into my posession. The reason I know this, I had to cut the pages as I read. Absolutely wonderful for me though, having mentioned in his essay those who only buy for affect, it is supremely ironic that Walpole himself was quite clearly a casualty of this odd misplaced love which is all about owning and not about reading and enjoying.
October 17, 2008
Honestly, this was a joy to read. Not only was it a great find of a free book, but it matches my sentiments (if not my own experiences) almost exactly when it comes to the joy of reading. Walpole's personal anecdotes are very funny and also about as telling as his library is in regards to his personal reading habits; he is candid and frank about his trials and errors in the futile attempt to reach literary erudition.
The book is divided into three sections that correspond to typical reading choices made by those who consider themselves to be "serious" readers throughout their lives. The first section, naturally, talks about books commonly chosen by children once they begin to enjoy reading independently along with amusing solicitous acts one may undertake in order to obtain potentially illicit reading materials. The second section focuses on the natural shift from reading simply for enjoyment to reading more critically and intelligently, even if one does tend towards snobbish habits that ultimately are inevitable. The third section is a type of amalgamation between the first parts of the book in that, at this point, a reader knows the difference between good and bad writing and now has settled upon personal preferences when compiling a library of one's own.
Overall, the tone is cheeky yet sincere, and I can't help but read it as Walpole describes reading about Alice all those years ago as a child, fitting myself in when applicable and altering what I'm reading when not. Although I found myself more than once lost in literary references that must have been obvious to the post-WWI readers for whom this book was intended (how else can we attribute a soldier to carrying around Shakespeare with him while in the trenches?), I was thrilled every time I could nod sagaciously along with Walpole. This definitely is a book to be read by those who love to read.
The book is divided into three sections that correspond to typical reading choices made by those who consider themselves to be "serious" readers throughout their lives. The first section, naturally, talks about books commonly chosen by children once they begin to enjoy reading independently along with amusing solicitous acts one may undertake in order to obtain potentially illicit reading materials. The second section focuses on the natural shift from reading simply for enjoyment to reading more critically and intelligently, even if one does tend towards snobbish habits that ultimately are inevitable. The third section is a type of amalgamation between the first parts of the book in that, at this point, a reader knows the difference between good and bad writing and now has settled upon personal preferences when compiling a library of one's own.
Overall, the tone is cheeky yet sincere, and I can't help but read it as Walpole describes reading about Alice all those years ago as a child, fitting myself in when applicable and altering what I'm reading when not. Although I found myself more than once lost in literary references that must have been obvious to the post-WWI readers for whom this book was intended (how else can we attribute a soldier to carrying around Shakespeare with him while in the trenches?), I was thrilled every time I could nod sagaciously along with Walpole. This definitely is a book to be read by those who love to read.
November 12, 2009
Walpole seeks to capture an impression of the ecstasy of reading in this short essay, penned in 1926. He traces his lifetime as a reader of books, from Lottie's Visit to Grandmamma, a primer that opened his vista to a world outside himself, through snobby intellectual tomes at college, and finally to the books he currently reads and collects for pleasure.
I was surprised by how few of the books Walpole read with such enjoyment are commonly studied or read today. The essay is littered with titles I've barely heard of ... I was starting to feel pretty stupid. But Walpole argues that our biblio-biographies will always be filled with books that strike others are rare or recondite. Reading for each of us, he posits, is intensely personal, and there really is no accounting for taste. We choose to read the books that are around us and that satisfy a very intimate interest or need. Sometimes we read out of curiosity, other times to strike an intellectual pose, and still other times for pleasure entirely. And it is the pleasure reading that makes the deepest impression, while assigned reading and reading in foreign languages makes the smallest dent in the brainpan.
Walpole, a prolific author, is not much read any more, and that's a pity. His style is light, almost Wodehousian, and his fiction, in particular his horror stories, was immensely popular during the 20s and 30s. Although slyly ridiculed by W. Somerset Maugham in Cakes and Ale, Walpole's work was praised by Henry James and T. S. Eliot, and I'm looking forward to dipping into it soon.
I was surprised by how few of the books Walpole read with such enjoyment are commonly studied or read today. The essay is littered with titles I've barely heard of ... I was starting to feel pretty stupid. But Walpole argues that our biblio-biographies will always be filled with books that strike others are rare or recondite. Reading for each of us, he posits, is intensely personal, and there really is no accounting for taste. We choose to read the books that are around us and that satisfy a very intimate interest or need. Sometimes we read out of curiosity, other times to strike an intellectual pose, and still other times for pleasure entirely. And it is the pleasure reading that makes the deepest impression, while assigned reading and reading in foreign languages makes the smallest dent in the brainpan.
Walpole, a prolific author, is not much read any more, and that's a pity. His style is light, almost Wodehousian, and his fiction, in particular his horror stories, was immensely popular during the 20s and 30s. Although slyly ridiculed by W. Somerset Maugham in Cakes and Ale, Walpole's work was praised by Henry James and T. S. Eliot, and I'm looking forward to dipping into it soon.
January 4, 2016
Discovered this book in college while browsing in the stacks and thought it was a gem.
Reread in 2015. I love the language of this book and that it's written in the 1920s so when it references the 80s, it means the 1880s.
Reread in 2015. I love the language of this book and that it's written in the 1920s so when it references the 80s, it means the 1880s.
September 25, 2018
Among other things, it's an interesting snapshot of the reading life, and also a Who's Who of literature in the nineteen-twenties and which works were considered Classic. There are also some charming passages which anthropomorphize books.
Here are a few good passages on literary criticism:
From reviewing old literary magazines of the late nineteenth century, Walpole writes, "One is struck by the immense amount of thoroughly bad prose and poetry then appearing. It was not difficult, I imagine, for true lovers of literature during those periods to discover good writers and adhere to them because there was so surprising a gulf between the good writers and the bad. To-day I think it is not so; an amazing number of men and women have learnt how to write a novel that, technically at least would have been thirty years ago a masterpiece. Creative genius is, of course, as rare now as it was then, but the novels and the minor poetry of to-day have nearly always the appearance of some culture and real talent. The result of this is that the more literary critics, wearied by finding novels always clever and always unsatisfactory, and poetry so much like the real thing that it is almost incredible that it should not be, look about them everywhere for novelty, and when they find it praise it out of all reason. On the other hand, certain authors, weary on their part of the old forms and knowing that if they are only novel enough they are certain to command attention, in their search for novelty forget to look about them for anything else. The result of all this is that there is springing up a cult for new forms, and that the literary critics, who ought to be having by reason of their great gifts real influence over the Plain Man who is interested in literature have none at all, because he—the Plain Man—discovers that they are forever recommending to him Cranks and Queer Ones whom he fails to understand. There is at the present time a superstition far too general among clever people that if a book has any large sale it cannot be good literature, and it is amusing for an onlooker to perceive how an author who has been a hero of a clever critic only yesterday may go down in his estimation as soon as a book by him wins a wide public appreciation."
Of the novel in its infancy (first half of nineteenth century), Walpole writes, "There was, in England at least, very little talk about technique, and no insistence at all upon novel ideas; there was, in England at any rate, an accepted convention about novels, right was intended to triumph, wrong to be ruthlessly defeated, and the difference between right and wrong was so clear that nobody could possibly mistake it. Being free, then, of moral and philosophical preoccupations, the novelists could fling themselves into the lives of their characters and lose all sense of an outside critical world. But in our time there is a constant cry that the old form of the novel is worn out, and an almost pathetic determination that no book shall be guilty of a moral purpose."
"And as to Charlotte Mary! When a few years ago a critic, meaning, I am afraid, to be unkind, said that in a certain book of mine I was Charlotte Mary Yonge trying to be Charlotte Brontë, he little knew what a compliment he paid me. It comes to this, that in our reading we cannot escape our environment. No one's tender feelings should ever be hurt when an intimate friend avows an opinion of a book far different from our own, for behind that opinion lie how many scenes and circumstances, how many strange journeys in far lands, how many snug and intimate settlings down beside a cosy fire for a winter's evening, how many delighted meetings with unexpected friends, how many unfortunate disappointments, how many critical moments of distress and even anguish when some book has gently pushed itself forward to prove itself the only understanding comforter."
Here are a few good passages on literary criticism:
From reviewing old literary magazines of the late nineteenth century, Walpole writes, "One is struck by the immense amount of thoroughly bad prose and poetry then appearing. It was not difficult, I imagine, for true lovers of literature during those periods to discover good writers and adhere to them because there was so surprising a gulf between the good writers and the bad. To-day I think it is not so; an amazing number of men and women have learnt how to write a novel that, technically at least would have been thirty years ago a masterpiece. Creative genius is, of course, as rare now as it was then, but the novels and the minor poetry of to-day have nearly always the appearance of some culture and real talent. The result of this is that the more literary critics, wearied by finding novels always clever and always unsatisfactory, and poetry so much like the real thing that it is almost incredible that it should not be, look about them everywhere for novelty, and when they find it praise it out of all reason. On the other hand, certain authors, weary on their part of the old forms and knowing that if they are only novel enough they are certain to command attention, in their search for novelty forget to look about them for anything else. The result of all this is that there is springing up a cult for new forms, and that the literary critics, who ought to be having by reason of their great gifts real influence over the Plain Man who is interested in literature have none at all, because he—the Plain Man—discovers that they are forever recommending to him Cranks and Queer Ones whom he fails to understand. There is at the present time a superstition far too general among clever people that if a book has any large sale it cannot be good literature, and it is amusing for an onlooker to perceive how an author who has been a hero of a clever critic only yesterday may go down in his estimation as soon as a book by him wins a wide public appreciation."
Of the novel in its infancy (first half of nineteenth century), Walpole writes, "There was, in England at least, very little talk about technique, and no insistence at all upon novel ideas; there was, in England at any rate, an accepted convention about novels, right was intended to triumph, wrong to be ruthlessly defeated, and the difference between right and wrong was so clear that nobody could possibly mistake it. Being free, then, of moral and philosophical preoccupations, the novelists could fling themselves into the lives of their characters and lose all sense of an outside critical world. But in our time there is a constant cry that the old form of the novel is worn out, and an almost pathetic determination that no book shall be guilty of a moral purpose."
"And as to Charlotte Mary! When a few years ago a critic, meaning, I am afraid, to be unkind, said that in a certain book of mine I was Charlotte Mary Yonge trying to be Charlotte Brontë, he little knew what a compliment he paid me. It comes to this, that in our reading we cannot escape our environment. No one's tender feelings should ever be hurt when an intimate friend avows an opinion of a book far different from our own, for behind that opinion lie how many scenes and circumstances, how many strange journeys in far lands, how many snug and intimate settlings down beside a cosy fire for a winter's evening, how many delighted meetings with unexpected friends, how many unfortunate disappointments, how many critical moments of distress and even anguish when some book has gently pushed itself forward to prove itself the only understanding comforter."
August 22, 2025
This was such a fascinating read! It really shows that all of the discourse on social media ruining reading, creating performative readers, and so on and so forth, has no legitimate basis. All of those things were happening in 1926, when Walpole penned this very essay. It's such an engaging and earnest account of the author's opinions on reading as influenced by his environment. Highly recommend.
October 13, 2020
A nice little read.
November 7, 2020
Enjoyed this. Inspired to put a similar autobiographical library together at some stage.
March 11, 2024
A delightful little essay about the phases a reader goes through in life; just generally a love letter to reading, in all its forms.
May 8, 2007
This is a quite enjoyable little piece of bibliomania that I randomly picked up in a used book shop. I have never been so glad about an impulse buy! It was delightful, relateable (sic?), eloquent, amusing and intelligent. I highly recommend it to fans to Anne Fadiman's work. It is quite autobiographical but, despite coming from a gay man living in the 1920s, it still is perfectly applicable to today. I guess reading and readers haven't changed much in the ensuing decades, which is rather as comforting as this book is.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews