Provincial Readers in Eighteenth-Century England

2007 OUP hardcover edition. Light reading wear else very good condition. Many scholars have written about eighteenth-century English novels, but no one really knows who read them. This study provides historical data on the provincial reading publics for various forms of fiction - novels, plays, chapbooks, children's books, and magazines. Archival records of Midland booksellers based in five market towns and selling printed matter to over thirty-three hundred customers between 1744 and 1807 form the basis for new information about who actually bought and borrowed different kinds of fiction in eighteenth-century provincial England. This book thus offers the first solid demographic information about actual readership in eighteenth-century provincial England, not only about the class, profession, age, and sex of readers but also about the market of available fiction from which they made their choices - and some speculation about why they made the choices they did. Contrary to received ideas, men in the provinces were the principal customers for eighteenth-century novels, including those written by women. Provincial customers preferred to buy rather than borrow fiction, and women preferred plays and novels written by women - women's works would have done better had women been the principal consumers. That is, demand for fiction (written by both men and women) was about equal for the first five years, but afterward the demand for women's works declined. Both men and women preferred novels with identifiable authors to anonymous ones, however, and both boys and men were able to cross gender lines in their reading. Goody Two-Shoes was one of the more popular children's books among Rugby schoolboys, and men read the Lady's Magazine. These and other findings will alter the way scholars look at the fiction of the period, the questions asked, and the histories told of it. Contents Introduction Fiction and the Archives The 'Rise' of the Novel, Women Readers, and the Problem of Evidence London Booksellers and their Archives The Booksellers: The Clays and Stevens and their Communities Clay Day Books, their Nature and Problems Day Book and Ledger Evidence and the Market for Fiction 1. Audiences for Novels: Gendered Reading The Audiences for Novels and Gender Adult Customers of the Clays and Stevens Men, Reviews, and Book Clubs Provincial Women Readers Case Studies of Women Customers Some Conclusions 2. Consuming Practices: Canonicity, Novels, and Plays Canonization, Readers, Anonymity, and Female Novelists Canonizing Drama Reading Practices: Multiple and Repeated Readings Reading Practices: Desultory Reading 3. Schoolboy Readers: John Newbery's Goody Two-Shoes and Licensed War Rugby School School Culture: Licensed War Reading Children's Books The Case of Goody Two-Shoes The Episodes of Goody Two-Shoes Making Sense of Goody Two-Shoes 4. Schoolboy Practices: Novels, Children's Books, Chapbooks, and Magazines Accounts of Schoolboy Reading Little Books - Abridgements in Chapbooks versus Children's Books Schoolboys Read Novels: Rugby School Secret Novel Reading at Rugby? More Schoolboys Read Even More Novels: Daventry Dissenting Academy Schoolboy Subscribers to Magazines 5. Audiences for Magazines and Serialized Publications Men who Read the Lady's Magazine Concealed Women Subscribers Magazine Subscribers and the Market Growth and Attrition in Magazine Audiences Audiences for Magazines and Novels Case Study: The Novelist's Magazine Serialized Publications Summary Conclusion Appendices 1. Clays' Circulating Library Stocks 2. Novels in English Bought and Borrowed, 1744-1807 3. All Children's Book and Chapbook Titles Bought by Rugby Boys 4. Magazines taken by Clay customers, 1746-1780 5. Adult consumers of Novels and Magazines, 1746-1780.…