{"id":742,"date":"2018-01-08T07:00:03","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T07:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=742"},"modified":"2020-02-20T16:18:24","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T16:18:24","slug":"pleasure-in-reading-is-the-true-function-of-all-books-cultural-critics-public-librarians-and-working-class-reading-in-early-twentieth-century-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=742","title":{"rendered":"‘Pleasure in reading is the true function of all books\u2019: Cultural critics, public librarians, and working-class reading in early-twentieth century Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this blog Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, looks at the growth of reading as a leisure activity among the working classes in Britain during the early twentieth century and considers how broader society viewed this expansion. Rob specialises in researching people\u2019s leisure practices, and teaches a number of units that focus on one of the most popular leisure pursuits of the first half of the twentieth century, going to the cinema.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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An early British lending library<\/p><\/div>\n

Do you ever think about how other people view the books you choose to read? Over the course of the last hundred or so years, people\u2019s reading habits have been subject to intense scrutiny, particularly the habits of working-class readers. A wide variety of individuals, including cultural critics and public librarians, wanted to shape working-class people\u2019s reading habits to ensure that they only read the \u2018right\u2019 type of fiction. Of course, relaxing with a book, particularly a work of fiction, was well-established as a popular leisure activity within British society from the nineteenth century onwards. It was, however, an activity that was mainly enjoyed by the country\u2019s more leisured classes up until the early-twentieth century. After the First World War, though, changes to the publishing industry\u2019s working practices, coupled with the growth of the \u2018open access\u2019 system in public libraries in the 1920s \u2013 when people could choose books freely from the shelves as they do today \u2013 and the spread of cheap lending libraries in the 1930s, created a new type of reader, drawn principally from the country\u2019s working-class communities. This spread of the working-class book reading habit raised much concern among people higher up the social ladder, and there was lots of discussion about it within the publishing trade.<\/p>\n

The wide-scale commercialization of the book trade was believed to be one of the reasons for the growing interest in reading by the working classes. After the First World War publishers began to use modern, aggressive marketing techniques to advertise their wares. As one contemporary noted, the publisher \u2018now elaborately prepares the ground for any new book, plans a campaign for it, advertises much more largely, and vies with his competitors in the use of every legitimate means of publicity.\u2019 [1] Many of the publishing trade\u2019s heavyweights were very critical of this trend towards commercialization, however, and in 1933 a leading article in the trade paper The Publishers\u2019 Circular and Booksellers\u2019 Record<\/em> pointedly noted that: \u2018Books are not in the same category as soap, chocolates and cigarettes.\u2019 [2] Cultural critics were equally dismissive of the mass marketing of books, and in 1932 the literary critic Q.D. Leavis argued that: \u2018The effect of the increasing control of Big Business […] is to destroy among the masses a desire to read anything which by the widest stretch could be included in the classification \u2018literature\u2019. [3] It was this aspect, the effects of commercialization on the reading habits of \u2018the masses\u2019 that was really at the heart of the matter. Time and again, it was the working classes\u2019 desire to consume, as Leavis disapprovingly put it, \u2018fiction that required the least effort to read,\u2019 that attracted most criticism. [4]<\/p>\n

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An example of ‘good’ fiction<\/p><\/div>\n

Many public librarians were equally disapproving of their library users\u2019 reading practices. For example, Edward Green, who was chief librarian of Halifax public libraries observed: \u2018In recent years a vast army of new readers \u2013 the product of the elementary school \u2013 has been recruited from a lower mental strata, and the intelligent use of the printed page needs more encouragement and direction.\u2019 [5] Manchester\u2019s chief public librarian, Charles Nowell likewise noted that the library\u2019s principal aim should be \u2018to maintain a healthy public interest in the novels and romances which are worth reading.\u2019 [6] Other public librarians were less concerned, however, and one of the most vocal supporters of including fiction in public libraries was chief librarian of Swinton and Pendlebury library service, Frederick J. Cowles. Despite making it known that he preferred readers to borrow \u2018good\u2019 fiction, Cowles championed the public librarians\u2019 right to include all types of fiction, for all classes of reader, in their libraries. This led to a long-running debate being played out in The Publishers\u2019 Circular and Booksellers\u2019 Record<\/em>, and Cowles attracted much criticism. However, some librarians did jump to his defense. Arthur E. Gower, for example, who was librarian and secretary in Grays, Essex, defended the public library\u2019s practice of stocking all forms of fiction by stating that librarians were merely the \u2018servants of the public.\u2019 [7] Indeed, Gower claimed that he wanted \u2018no higher office,\u2019 concluding that \u2018Pleasure in reading is the true function of all books.\u2019 [8]<\/p>\n

Despite these concessions to the working classes\u2019 reading tastes, the mutual improvement ethos \u2013 which had been so central to the setting up of public libraries in the first place \u2013 continued to hold sway well in to the twentieth century, particularly due to the large numbers of readers from that social class choosing to turn to the written word for entertainment and relaxation. So when you next sit down to read a book, perhaps you\u2019d like to think about what these public librarians and cultural critics would have had to say about your reading tastes. Would they be nodding approvingly as you read through the works of Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy, or would they be shaking their heads with despair as you browsed the pages of the latest \u2018trashy\u2019 novel? [9]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Notes<\/p>\n

[1] Frank Swinnerton, \u2018Authorship\u2019, in John Hampden, ed. The Book World: A New Survey <\/em>(London, 1935), pp. 12-35: p. 14.<\/p>\n

[2] Anon., \u2018Books as commodities\u2019, The Publishers\u2019 Circular and Booksellers\u2019 Record<\/em>, 22 April 1933, p. 395.<\/p>\n

[3] Q.D. Leavis, Fiction and the Reading Public<\/em> (London, 1932), p. 17.<\/p>\n

[4] Leavis, Fiction and the Reading Public<\/em>, p. 27.<\/p>\n

[5] Edward Green, The Publishers\u2019 Circular and Booksellers\u2019 Record<\/em>, 3 June 1933, p. 605.<\/p>\n

[6] Charles Nowell, \u2018The Public Library\u2019, in John Hampden, ed. The Book World: A New Survey <\/em>(London, 1935), pp. 181-194: p. 188.<\/p>\n

[7] Arthur E. Gower, The Publishers\u2019 Circular and Booksellers\u2019 Record<\/em>, 26 March 1932, p. 327.<\/p>\n

[8] Ibid.<\/p>\n

[9] The novels of Dickens and Hardy were repeatedly mentioned as the types of \u2018good\u2019 fiction that the working classes should be encouraged to read.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To read the article that examines these issues in more depth, published in the Journal of Social History<\/em>, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this blog Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, looks at the growth of reading as a leisure activity among the working classes in Britain during the early twentieth century and considers how broader society viewed this expansion. Rob specialises in researching people\u2019s leisure practices, and teaches a number of units that focus on one of the most popular leisure pursuits of the first half of the twentieth century, going to the cinema. Do you ever think about how other people view the books you choose to read? Over the course of the last hundred or so years, people\u2019s reading habits have been subject to intense scrutiny, particularly the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[158,159,80,79,98,81],"class_list":["post-742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new_publications","category-research-in-focus","tag-class","tag-leisure","tag-public-libraries","tag-reading","tag-twentieth-century","tag-twopenny-libraries"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/books-1e8981e2635d91219b772a863092544cd5b9bab1-s6-c30-e1513095223113.jpg?fit=620%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p91PlX-bY","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=742"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":758,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions\/758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}