Consuming Texts: Readers and Reading Communities, 1695-1870
Stephen Colclough
Consuming Texts explores the history of reading in the British Isles during a period in which the printed word became all pervasive. Beginning with an overview of recent work, it goes on to provide a series of case studies of individual readers and the communities to which they belonged. From wealthy readers of 'amatory fiction' in the early Eighteenth century, through to men and women reading surreptitiously at the Victorian railway bookstall, it argues that a variety of new reading communities emerged during this period.