Record Number: 1818
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
[According to Flora Thompson], "Modern writers who speak of the booklessness of the poor at that time must mean books as possessions...there were always books to borrow"... One could borrow Pamela and the Waverley novels from a neighbour, Christies Old Organ from the Sunday School library. Her uncle, a shoemaker, had once carted home from a country-house auction a large collection of books that no-one would buy: novels, poetry, sermons, histories, dictionaries. She read him Cranford while he worked in his shop... Later she could borrow from her employer (the village postmistress) Shakespeare and Byron's Don Juan, as well as Jane Austen, Dickens and Trollope from the Mechanics' Institute library.'
Century:1850-1899
Date:unknown
Country:England
Timen/a
Place:county: Oxfordshire
Type of Experience(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: Age:Adult (18-100+)
Gender:Female
Date of Birth:05 Dec 1876
Socio-Economic Group:Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder
Occupation:worked for postmistress, then a writer
Religion:n/a
Country of Origin:England
Country of Experience:England
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
her uncle
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:Don Juan
Genre:Poetry
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication Detailsn/a
Provenanceborrowed (other)
Source Information:
Record ID:1818
Source:Jonathan Rose
Editor:n/a
Title:The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes
Place of Publication:New Haven
Date of Publication:2001
Vol:n/a
Page:85
Additional Comments:
n/a
Citation:
Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, (New Haven, 2001), p. 85, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=1818, accessed: 22 November 2024
Additional Comments:
See Flora Thompson, Lark Rise to Candleford (Harmondsworth, 1987)
