Britta's Letters from her life divided between city-life in German's capital Berlin and life in a Bavarian village
Showing posts with label Samuel Richardson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Samuel Richardson. Show all posts

Sunday 21 April 2013

Don't, Mr. Disraeli!


Thursday and Friday I made a trip to Hildesheim for cultural reasons. 
Husband exploited the situation to force beg me to look through some of the chests with clothes I hadn't (but might!) worn for years some time. 
Now, that most of the thousands of husband's books (no exaggeration!) are brought to a special very big room in the attic, I was asked to sort my books out, too. To our Berlin flat, husband and I brought only a small part of books from Hildesheim. 
But even that is too much. Soon, when you'll visit in Berlin an Oxfam Bookshop you might be surprised of the rows and rows of well assorted English literature. Some in leather and gold, some just Penguins. Most of them in very tiny print - and almost every one of them read by me. But it has come the time that I know (and admit ) that I will not read them again. Good bye, "Pamela - Or Virtue Rewarded" - thank you Mr. Richardson, I think I have been the only student at the University of Mainz who read all four of those very big tomes - and enjoyed it! - but I think I don't have time enough to repeat that. 
I'll keep the books I read again and again, but: Good bye, Mr. Trollope (except Barchester Tower), and to most of Mr. Thackeray - ("The History of Henry Esmond", which I translated for a German publisher I will keep, though I will not read that again either). 'Beowulf' I will keep, and Mr. Jonson, and I love 'Tristram Shandy', but I give away Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' - though I keep "Mrs. Fytton's Country Life" by Mavis Cheek, hahaha, even if you cry "Don't, Mr. Disraeli!"  
See: now I follow only my own enigmatic judgement, no need to impress anybody, and I do as I please. 

PS: I did what you should NEVER do when trying to get rid of books - I thumbed through Pamela - my William Heineman edition from 1902 has nice reproductions of 'rare contemporary drawings and with plates for the text' - and then I started to read - and ... I like it... will keep those... (but I am hell-bent not to thumb through Trollope)