Record Number: 5032
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
'Growing up in Clapton during the Depression, Michael Stapleton needed a signature from his father (an Irish navvy) for a public library card, "but I asked him on the wrong evening and he merely shouted at me... So I... started examining every book in the house, ransacking forgotten cupboards and the hole under the stairs. I read everything I could understand, and begged twopenny bloods quite shamelessly from the boys at school who were fortunate enough to enjoy such things. I absorbed an immense amount of useless information, but occasionally a treasure came my way and I would strain my eyes under the twenty-watt bulb which lighted our kitchen. A month-old copy of the 'Wizard' would be succeeded by a handbook for vegetarians, and this in turn would be followed by 'Jane Eyre'. 'Tarzan and the Jewels of Ophir' was no sooner finished than I was deep in volumes three and four of a history of 'The Conquest of Peru' (the rest of the set was missing). I would go from that to 'Rip van Winkle' and straight on to a tattered copy of the Hotspur".'
Century:1900-1945
Date:Between 1 Jan 1930 and 31 Dec 1939
Country:England
Timen/a
Place:city: London, Clapton
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:Child (0-17)
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:n/a
Socio-Economic Group:Labourer (non-agricultural)
Occupation:father a navvy
Religion:n/a
Country of Origin:England
Country of Experience:England
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:Jane Eyre
Genre:Fiction
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication Detailsn/a
Provenanceborrowed (other)
Source Information:
Record ID:5032
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:373
Additional Comments:
n/a
Citation:
Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, (New Haven, 2001), p. 373, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=5032, accessed: 05 October 2024
Additional Comments:
See Stapleton, 'Threshold' pp. 230-31