Synopses & Reviews
"Reading has a history. But how can we recover it?" This volume brings together original research essays focusing on the history of reading in the British Isles, using evidence ranging from library records to Mass Observation surveys to highlight the social factors that influence a seemingly private, individual activity.
About the Author
KATIE HALSEY is Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature at the University of Stirling, UK. Her publications include numerous articles on literature and print culture, and the co-edited volumes
The Concept and Practice of Conversation in the Long Eighteenth Century (2007) and
The History of Reading (2010).
W.R. OWENS is Professor of English Literature at The Open University, UK. He has published widely on John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe, and is Director of the Reading Experience Database, 1450-1945 (RED) project. His most recent publication is an edition of the 1611 text of The Gospels for Oxford World's Classics (2011).
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Foreword; S.Eliot
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction; K.Halsey & W.R. Owens
PART I: READING COMMUNITIES
'The Talent Hid in a Napkin': Castle Libraries in Eighteenth-Century Scotland; M.Towsey
Caroline and Paul: Biblical Commentaries as Evidence of Reading in Victorian Britain; M.Ledger-Lomas
Reading the 'religion of socialism': Olive Schreiner, the Labour Church and the Construction of Left-wing Reading Communities in the 1890s; C.Gill
PART II: READING AND GRATIFICATION
Learning to Read Trash: Late-Victorian Schools and the Penny Dreadful; A.Vaninskaya
'Something light to take my mind off the war': Reading on the Home Front during the Second World War; K.Halsey
PART III: READING AND THE PRESS
What Readers Want: Criminal Intelligence and the Fortunes of the Metropolitan Press during the Long Eighteenth Century; R.Crone
The Reading World of a Provincial Town: Preston, Lancashire 1855-1900; A.Hobbs
'Putting Literature Out of Reach'? Reading Popular Newspapers in Mid-twentieth Century Britain; A.Bingham
PART IV: READERS AND AUTODIDACTICISM
James Lackington (1746-1815): Reading and Personal Development; S.Bankes
Henry Head (1861-1940) as a Reader of Literature; S.Jacyna
In a Class of their Own: the Autodidact Impulse and Working-Class Readers in Twentieth-century Scotland; L.Fleming,D.Finkelstein &A.McCleery
Further Reading and Weblinks
Index