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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Record Number: 1940


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Soldier's son Joseph Barker... first read the Bible "chiefly as a work of history and was very greatly delighted with many of its stories... One effect was to lead me to regard miracles as nothing improbable". Consequently his response to Pilgrim's Progress was exactly the same: "My impression was, that the whole was literal and true"...Ghost stories, highwayman stories, fairy tales, Paradise Lost and Daniel Defoe were all equally credible. "I was naturally a firm believer in all that was gravely spoken or printed", he recalled. "I doubted nothing that was found in books... I had no idea at the time I read Robinson Crusoe, that there were such things as novels, works of fiction, in existence".'

Century:

1800-1849

Date:

unknown

Country:

n/a

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown


Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Joseph Barker

Age:

Child (0-17)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

1806

Socio-Economic Group:

Labourer (non-agricultural)

Occupation:

soldier's son

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

n/a

Country of Experience:

n/a

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a


Additional Comments:

n/a



Text Being Read:

Author:

Daniel Defoe

Title:

Robinson Crusoe

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown


Source Information:

Record ID:

1940

Source:

Print

Author:

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:

95-6

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, (New Haven, 2001), p. 95-6, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=1940, accessed: 28 March 2024


Additional Comments:

See Joseph Barker, 'History and Confessions' pp.116-18

   
   
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