Record Number: 2473
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
[due to the fact that books in working class communities were generally cheap out of copyright reprints, not new works] Welsh collier Joseph Keating was able to immerse himself in Swift, Pope, Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Keats, Byron, Shelley, Dickens and Greek philosophy, as well as the John Dicks edition of Vanity Fair in weekly installments. The common denominator among these authors was that they were all dead. "Volumes by living authors were too high-priced for me", Keating explained. "Our schoolbooks never mentioned living writers; and the impression in my mind was that an author, to be a living author, must be dead and that his work was all the better if he died of neglect and starvation".'
Century:1850-1899
Date:unknown
Country:Wales
Timen/a
Place:n/a
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:Unknown
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:1871
Socio-Economic Group:Labourer (non-agricultural)
Occupation:collier
Religion:n/a
Country of Origin:Wales
Country of Experience:Wales
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:n/a
Genre:Fiction
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication Detailsn/a
Provenanceowned
Source Information:
Record ID:2473
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:121
Additional Comments:
n/a
Citation:
Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, (New Haven, 2001), p. 121, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=2473, accessed: 21 December 2024
Additional Comments:
See Joseph Keating 'My Struggle for Life' (London, 1916)
