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

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

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

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 Keating

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:

Charles Dickens

Title:

n/a

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

owned


Source Information:

Record ID:

2473

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:

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: 05 November 2024


Additional Comments:

See Joseph Keating 'My Struggle for Life' (London, 1916)

   
   
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