Available October 2024
Where the Victorians Got Their Reading
Cultural change in marketing, distribution, and individual access for
'The Million' in Britain, North America, and Australia
Frederick Nesta (Ed.)
About this book
In the 19th century middle-class and elite readers were served by subscription circulating libraries, notably by Mudie’s Select library and his bookshop, by Hatchards in Piccadilly in London and other retail bookshops. But what about the working man or woman who might have felt out of place in Mudie’s or in a bookshop, or of someone who lived in a country town without a bookshop, in prison, or in the American frontier? Where did they get their reading material?
As these new essays show, there were many options: the second-hand trade, religious societies, free and workingman’s libraries, railway booksellers, local circulating libraries, newsagents, direct mail, prize books, books distributed as premiums, street booksellers, and books sold by drapers, grocers, and other retail outlets. Books, pamphlets, newspapers, and magazines were readily available at prices that even working people could afford, and often for free.
The essays in this volume look at nineteenth century readers and the publishers and distributors who catered to them. Missionary societies and Sunday schools distributed tracts, Bibles, and prize books for good attendance. Subscription, and workingman’s libraries brought books and periodicals to the working man, though that flow may have been controlled by middle- and upper-class boards. Penny fiction was available in many places besides railway bookstalls. Drapers sold books, often purchased from publishers who sold cheap editions to them and to street booksellers. Country grocers also sold books and even had lending libraries. Prison libraries provided inmates with books and periodicals, and humble Canadian tinsmiths were able to improve their lot by reading. And people loaned books and periodicals to their friends.
Contents:
Alternative Sources Available to Nineteenth Century Readers: An Introduction – Frederick Nesta.
Remarkable but Unremarked. R.E. King, a ‘novel’ innovator in distribution and access to cheaper fiction for ‘The Million’, 1856-1916. – John Spiers.
Booksellers vs Drapers: trade competition in Victorian Britain – Frederick Nesta.
‘One Of The Greatest Nuisances Of The Day’? The Canvassing of British Number Books Over The Nineteenth Century – Graham Law.
Sunday School Libraries: The Transatlantic Influences and Contrasts – Cheryl Thurber.
In the Reading Gaol – Rebecca Nesvet.
Self-Improvement in Victorian Ontario, Or How the Tinsmith Got His Books – Kathryn Carter.
Society, Mercantile, Mechanics, and Workingman’s Libraries – Frederick Nesta.
‘Within The Reach Of The Whole Reading Public.’ Retail, Railways, and The New Readers in Britain, 1846-1914 – John Spiers.
Penny Fiction ('Bloods' And 'Dreadfuls') – Rebecca Nesvet.
Women, Dime Novels, And Popular Culture: The American Evolution of the Penny Dreadful – Grace Adeneye.
The Emotional Economies of Book Borrowing In Victorian Britain. – Christopher Ferguson.
Notes on Contributors.
About the editor
Frederick Nesta is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Information Studies at University College London. He joined UCL in 2013 as an Associate Professor to establish the MA in Library and Information Studies programme in Qatar in association with the Qatar Foundation. From 2004 to 2011 he was University Librarian at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. A former bookseller in New York City and Hong Kong, he directed special and academic libraries in New York, London, and Hong Kong. His research interests are in Victorian book history and the history of the book in China. He is the author of Published This Day: Marketing Books in Victorian England (Brighton: Edward Everett Root, 2022) and George Gissing, Grub Street, and the Transformation of British Publishing (Brighton: Edward Everett Root, 2020). He lives in Athens, Greece.
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