| Notes |
['Info Peter Hoare:\n\nDouglas Galbi estimates 250 hours for reading Madeleine de Scudéry\'s "Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus". A copy of Georges de Scudéry\'s "Almahide, ou L\'esclave reine" at Belton House in Lincolnshire, England, may help to confirm this.\n\nThis copy of the Paris edition of 1660-63, published in 3 "parties" but bound in 8 volumes, has interesting notes about the progress of someone\'s reading: this may be an early French owner [or conceivably a member of the Brownlowe family, perhaps Mary Brownlowe (born c. 1600) - there is a signature "M Brownlowe" on a flyleaf, but this is not necessarily the same person].\n\nThe notes are not all legible, but include for example on the title-page of the first part of "partie" 1: "Je l\'ay com[m]encé le 4esme de XI: \n<62>" and on the final page of the same volume "Je l\'ay fini le 15 XIo: \n<62>, while the final page of "partie" 3 part 2 says "Je l\'ay fini le 4 de Avr: <64>". That is, the first volume took her eleven or twelve days to read (4th-15th November 1662), and in another fortnight (by 1st\nDecember) she had finished the 2102 pages of the first "partie". And the successive volumes were clearly bought as they were published and eagerly read - but it was a commitment over fourteen months. No doubt English readers were no less assiduous.\n\nsvd aug08']
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