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

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Exploring

On selecting an essay from the list below, you will be redirected to the Open University's OpenLearn site. To keep UK RED open at the same time, we recommend that you right-click with your mouse on a title and select 'open in new tab/ window'.


picture for Essay One Reading the English Bible

The year 2011 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the most widely-read book in the English language: the translation of the Bible published in 1611 that has come to be known as the 'Authorised Version' or the 'King James Bible'…

picture for Essay Two Charles Dickens and his readers

Love him or hate him, it is widely accepted now that Charles Dickens was one of the giants of Victorian literature, far outselling his rivals and thus – so the story goes – exceptionally far-reaching in his power and influence. But how much influence did he really have, and on whom?

picture for Essay Three Jane Austen's readers

The first time I read Jane Austen's Emma, I was fifteen. Bored one day during the Christmas holidays, when the weather was dreadful and the television worse, I turned to my mother's bookshelf…

picture for Essay Four A famous novel and it's readers: Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

'Reader, I married him…' These four words have become one of the most famous phrases in the English-speaking world, and many will be able to identify them as the opening to the final chapter of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre…

picture for Essay Five Childhood reading in the 1870s and 1880s: the recollections of Molly Hughes

The three volumes of autobiography published by the educationalist M.V. (Molly) Hughes (1866–1956) are a rich source of information on the books she read and loved as a child…

picture for Essay Six Reading and World War I

World War I could easily be described as 'the first great war of words'. When primary schooling was made compulsory in Britain in 1880, the literacy of the general population increased markedly…

picture for Essay Seven Reading places

The places in which readers engaged with texts are of particular importance to anyone interested in the history of reading, because readers don't just engage with the object being read, they also take note of the context in which it is encountered…

picture for Essay Eight Reading while travelling

Until recently – certainly until the laptop, mobile phone, and personal stereo took over – travel, and particularly the daily commute, was characterised in buses and trains by people intent on a newspaper, a magazine or a book…

picture for Essay Nine Samuel Pepys: diarist, book collector and reader

In his diary for 10 January 1662, Samuel Pepys wrote: 'I late reading in my Chamber; and then to bed, my wife being angry that I keep the house up so late'…

picture for Essay Ten Robert Louis Stevenson's reading

The author of bestsellers such as Treasure Island (1883) and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1885), Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) was one of the greatest literary celebrities of his age…

picture for Essay Eleven Reading Culture in the Victorian Underworld

For some years now, we have been treated to many colourful accounts of the Victorian underworld. Documentaries, serialisations of the nineteenth-century classics, neo-Victorian novels and sensational books have evoked the smells and sounds of the slums…



   
   
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