This article considers the reading life of the early-nineteenth-century British traveler and physician, Robert Lee (1793–1877). Drawing on evidence from Lee’s unknown manuscript travel journal penned during his travel to and residence in the Russian Empire in 1824–1826, where he worked as a family physician at Count M. S. Vorontsov’s household, it reconstructs his reading list and discusses the circumstances in which his reading acts took place. The article reveals that most of his reading was done in four places: Bila Tserkva, Odesa, Crimea, and Moshny, where Lee, most probably, borrowed books from Count M. S. Vorontsov’s private book collection. Lee was a punctilious and attentive reader, and his reading was active, selective, and purposive. The publications printed between 1800 and 1825 predominated in his reading list. The article uses an egodocumental approach to explore the ways in which Lee verified and internalised information which was obtained from history books and non-fiction travel accounts, predominating in his reading list. While on the move, these two genres helped Lee navigate successfully the new sociocultural environment and gain knowledge about the countries in which he resided and planned to travel or stay in the future. The article also discusses the impact of early-nineteenth-century British literature on the educated elite in the Russian Empire, revealing the popularity of Walter Scott’s novels and George Gordon Byron’s poetical works in Count M. S. Vorontsov’s environment and beyond.
References
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