Record Number: 3833

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'Ethel Mannin was an exceptionally liberated letter-sorter's daughter, an early reader of Freud who made something of a career championing sexual freedom in the popular press. But when she approached the subject as a girl, she was far more fearful than informed: "At the board school all the girls were morbidly interested in parturition, menstruation, and procreation... We raked the Bible for information, and those of us who came from homes in which there were books made endless research, looking up in encyclopaedias and home medical works, such words as 'confinement', 'miscarriage', 'after-birth'... We were both fascinated and horrified. At the age of twelve I ploughed through a long and difficult book on embryology"... She copied passages from The Song of Songs into her commonplace book, but was disgusted when she came across the phrase, "Esau came forth from his mother's belly": "It seemed unspeakably dreadful, conjured up visions of sanguinary major operations. I was very miserable...".'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

unknown

Country:

n/a

Time

n/a

Place:

specific address: home

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

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Ethel Mannin

Age:

Child (0-17)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

1900

Socio-Economic Group:

Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder

Occupation:

letter-sorter's daughter

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

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Text Being Read:

Author:

[unknown]

Title:

[home medical books]

Genre:

Medicine, Reference / General works

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

3833

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:

214

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, (New Haven, 2001), p. 214, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=3833, accessed: 17 March 2025

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Additional Comments:

See Ethel Mannin, 'Confessions and Impressions' (London, 1930) pp.39-41