How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain

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How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain Page 51

by Price, Leah

She Would Be a Governess, 276n3

  shilling shocker, 11

  Shiv, Baba, Ziv Carmon, and Dan Ariely, 159

  shoes, 29–30

  shorthand, 95, 96–100, 130

  Sicherman, Barbara, 51

  Simmel, Georg, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 271n6

  Simpson, James, “Bonjour paresse,” 233

  single-use goods, 247

  single-use works, 248, 249, 250

  Sisyphus, 142

  Siti, Walter, 290n28

  Skallerup, Harry Robert, 232

  skin, 2, 102–3, 118, 123, 128, 129

  slate, 101, 103

  Slaughter, Joseph R., 40, 125–26, 284n19

  slave narrative, 108, 125, 184, 186

  slavery metaphor, 115

  slaves, 123

  slave ships, 127

  slops, 246, 248

  Small, Helen, 105–6

  Smith, Benjamin, 185

  Smollett, Tobias: Humphrey Clinker, 82, 85; Peregrine Pickle, 82; Roderick Random, 82, 85

  social class, 13, 26, 55, 175, 236, 237; blurring of, 175; and book binding, 178; and book burning, 9; and book formats, 175, 178, 180–82; books as cutting across, 13, 200; in Dickens, 105; and gender, 197, 236; and handling paper vs. reading as uniting, 239; and Knight, 235–36; and library, 194; and literacy, 9, 203, 283n1; and masters and servants, 178; and materialism, 11; and Mayhew, 231, 238, 239; and missionaries, 133; and novel reading, 105–6; and public library, 175, 176; and reading, 105–6; and relationship of reading to handling, 240–41; and religious publications, 115–16; and religious tracts, 153; and religious tract societies, 178; and text, 17; and text vs. book, 31. See also lower classes; middle class; niche marketing; poor people; rich people; upper middle class; working class

  social mobility, 16, 17, 57, 96

  social networks, 139, 156

  social rank, 2, 24

  social relationships, 5–6, 7, 260; and bible distribution, 159; books as dependent on, 203; and book vs. text, 10; and circulation, 12–13; and copies of books, 12; and distribution, 7; embeddedness of objects in, 169; and Gissing, 258, 259; and handling, 9–10; and religious tracts, 151–52, 155, 175, 194. See also interpersonal connections

  social status, 18

  social structures, 13, 73

  Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), 150, 178, 183, 184, 185

  Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 26–27

  sofa-table books, 18, 70, 84, 113, 169, 183

  solipsism, 67, 68, 71

  Southey, Robert, 3; Letters from England, 263n1

  sower metaphor, 111, 145–46

  Spectator, 234–35, 254–55, 257

  speed-reading, 141

  Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 273n8

  Spufford, Francis, 275n15

  Stallybrass, Peter, 34

  Stallybrass, Peter, and Ann Rosalind Jones, 246

  Stationery Office, 145

  St Clair, William, 34, 36, 150, 160, 246

  Steedman, Carolyn, 164, 176, 203, 283n5, 285n21

  Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), Vie de Henry Brulard, 84

  stenography, 96–100, 103

  Stephen, James Fitzjames, 259

  Stephen, Leslie, “Journalism,” 142

  Stephenson, Neal, The Diamond Age, 273n5

  stereotype, 23, 27

  Sterling, John, 235

  Sterne, Jonathan, 224

  Sterne, Lawrence, Tristram Shandy, 77, 111

  Stewart, Garrett, 51; The Look of Reading, 52, 268n29, 272n4; “The Mind’s Sigh,” 50; “Painted Readers, Narrative Regress,” 51–52

  Stewart, R., “A Piece of Waste Paper,” 244

  Stimpson, Felicity, 116

  Stock, Jan, 226

  Stone, Lawrence, 189

  storytelling, 104, 105

  Stott, Anne, 151

  study, 13, 23, 25, 26, 55, 85, 99, 100, 235, 285n25. See also libraries

  Sturgis, Howard Overing, Belchamber, 59

  Suarez, Michael Felix, and H. R. Woudhuysen, 263n4

  subject, formation of, 130

  suffering: and bildungsroman, 129; as defining limits of the human, 125; and Exeter Book, 132; and it-narratives, 118, 122, 124, 129

  Sumerian clay tablets, 225

  sumptuary codes, 116, 132

  Sunday at Home, 112, 114

  Swell’s Night Guide, 96

  Swift, Jonathan, Gulliver’s Travels, 80

  Sylph, 67, 75

  talking bible, 113

  talking books, 108, 109

  talking tracts, 110–11

  Tanselle, Thomas, 263n4

  Tatar, Maria, 274n13

  Tauchnitz series, 62

  taxes, 35; and newspapers, 38, 141; on paper, 9, 38, 141, 219, 220, 225, 249, 290n31; on serials, 38

  Taylor, Ann, The Present of a Mother to a Servant, 164

  Taylor, Harriet, 236

  Taylor, Jeremy, 173; Holy Living and Holy Dying, 172

  teachers, 14, 88, 101. See also education; schools

  tearjerkers, 19

  temperance tracts, 206

  Terdiman, Richard, 261

  text, 71; absent, 92; age vs. price of, 246–47; as allegory of own manufacture and distribution, 130; and autodidacticism, 17; and body and soul, 144; and book, 2, 4–5, 10–11, 20, 25–26, 32, 40, 78, 129; and children and adults, 91, 100; dematerialization of, 220; diegetic and extradiegetic discussions of, 91–92; differently priced editions of, 2; and empathy across classes and genders, 17; ephemerality of, 224, 225; and gender, 31; and individual freedom, 17; as invisible to husbands, 50; and life cycle metaphors, 231; life span of, 250; as linguistic structure, 20; material conditions for selling and buying of, 95; and mind and body, 129; and moderation, 10–11; as object of piety, 10; as poison, 15; power to change identity of reader, 18; preservation vs. destruction of, 225–26; and protagonists’ daydreams, 77; reproduction of, 225; self-distributing, 124; as shield from demands of women, 54–55; socialization of, 134; and social mobility, 17; successive users of, 168–74; thematic analysis of, 35; transformation into speech, 106; and women, 56; worship of, 16

  textuality, 16

  textual value, 8–9

  Thackeray, William Makepeace, 88, 131, 207, 212, 236; “George de Barnwell,” 85, 90, 274n14; The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., 77; and Mayhew, 251; The Newcomes, 50, 66, 178; Roundabout Papers, 76, 178; “Singular Letter from the Regent of Spain,” 204–6; Sketches and Travels in London, 66; and tract societies, 156; Vanity Fair, 25–26, 45, 46, 55, 76, 77, 200–201, 205–6, 208, 267n16, 273n7, 285n22; The Virginians, 77; “Why Can’t They Leave Us Alone in the Holidays?”, 276n30; Yellowplush Papers, 26

  thematic analysis, 35

  thematic materialism, 130

  “Things It Is Better Not to Do,” 74

  thing theory, 22, 108

  Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ, 169, 170, 173–74, 229, 260, 282n29

  Thoreau, Henry David, 23, 37

  Thornton, Henry, 151

  Tonna, Charlotte Elizabeth, The Wrongs of Woman, 160

  tradesmen, 6, 113, 236

  “Traffic in Waste Paper,” 250

  Treasury of Amadis of France, The, 134

  Trollope, Anthony, 7, 36, 50, 51, 71, 73, 78, 81, 85, 131, 158, 207, 215, 260; An Autobiography, 18, 29, 59, 86, 106; Ayala’s Angel, 86; and book as wedge, 198; Can You Forgive Her?, 47; Castle Richmond, 29, 206; The Claverings, 45, 47; Cousin Henry, 70; The Eustace Diamonds, 62; He Knew He Was Right, 63; “The Higher Education of Women,” 63; and Mayhew, 221; Miss Mackenzie, 156; “Novel-Reading,” 59; “On English Prose Fiction,” 210; Palliser series, 47; The Prime Minister, 45, 47; reading as reductively other-directed in, 67; and silent reading as interpersonal act, 67–68; The Small House at Allington, 48–49, 53, 60, 67, 74, 214; The Struggles of Brown, Jones and Robinson, 267n19

  Trollope, Frances, 150, 209

  Troubridge, Laura, 214

  Trumpener, Katie, Bardic Nationalism, 90, 203

  trunk linings, 220


  trunk-makers, 230, 233, 236, 239, 252

  Turkle, Sherry, 131

  Twenty-third Annual Report of the Bombay Tract and Book Society, 281n19

  “Two Bibles, The,” 38

  Tyburn Dick, 69

  Tyndale, William, 39

  typewriters, 97

  UNESCO, 40

  upper middle class, 31. See also social class

  Useful and the Beautiful, The, 193

  Vickery, Amanda, 283n7

  Victoria, 9

  Victoria Magazine, 140

  Victorians, 4–5, 10–11, 16, 36

  Vincent, David: Literacy and Popular Culture, 86, 285n20; The Rise of Mass Literacy, 56, 141, 252, 271n6

  violence, 53, 54, 72–73, 76, 119, 124. See also book throwing

  Virginia, natives of, 40

  Visitor, The, 132

  Viswanathan, Gauri, 157

  voice, 121, 122; and bildungsroman, 128; and it-narrative, 109, 110, 114, 116, 119, 124, 127, 128

  vulgarians, 11

  vulgarity, 85

  vulnerability, 118, 122, 125, 127, 128

  Wallis, Alfred, 229

  Ward, Mary Arnold, David Grieve, 278n11

  Ward and Lock’s Home Book, 283n8

  warehouse, 1, 144–45

  Warner, Michael: The Letters of the Republic, 198–99; “Uncritical Reading,” 21

  wastepaper, 223–24; and authors, 233; Bibles as, 157, 159; and cheapness of new paper, 250; economics of, 239; and legible texts, 242, 245; market value of, 250; and Mayhew, 222, 223, 231; as memento mori, 233; representation of, 252; resale value of, 148; reselling for, 6; and tracts, 243–45; trade in, 250; trope of, 251, 252. See also paper

  “Waste Paper,” 243

  Watkins, M. G., “The Library,” 2, 123–24, 133

  Watson, Rowan, 195

  Watt, Isaac, Divine Hymns, 91

  Watts, Newman, The Romance of Tract Distribution, 202, 204, 211, 242, 251, 252

  Waugh, Evelyn, A Handful of Dust, 216

  Weedon, Alexis, 250

  Weekly Visitor, The, 132

  Welsh, Alexander: From Copyright to Copperfield, 95; George Eliot and Blackmail, 141; The Hero of the Waverley Novels, 278n14

  Wesleyan Conference Office, 209

  Wesleyan Magazine, 244–45

  West, William, 225

  West Africa, 40

  Westminster Review, 241

  Wharton, Edith: A Backward Glance, 74; “The Line of Least Resistance,” 271n8

  White, Borrett, 243

  White, Gleeson, Book-Song, 123

  White, Hayden, 265n8

  Wilberforce, William, 208–9

  Wilde, Oscar, 3

  Williams, Raymond, The Long Revolution, 218

  Williams, William Proctor, and Craig S. Abbott, 134

  Wills, W. H., 142

  Windscheffel, Ruth Clayton, 58, 184

  wives, 12, 47, 57, 66, 75, 190; as blocking husbands’ reading, 54; and distraction of reading novels, 193; and family prayers, 214; and freedom from gaze of husbands, 61; hiding by, 13, 15, 51, 62, 74, 193; and husbands, 15; husbands as beating, 53, 124; husbands as preventing from reading, 55–56; and lost happiness, 58–59; and newspapers, 62, 203; and novels, 55–56, 73; refuge for men from, 55; and romance with characters, 259. See also marriage; women

  Wogan, Peter, 40

  women, 10, 75, 241; access to books, 91; as bible distributors, 203; as blocking men’s reading, 56; book as buffer from men, 81; and bookbindings, 2; and children, 91; and dress patterns, 54–55, 56; and empathy and imagination, 57; and feminization of reading, 57; and feminizing book and text, 56; and food vs. books, 31; and gendered division of labor, 100; and Gissing, 258; as higher variance to men, 56; as hostile to books, 53–55; and interiority, individuality, and authenticity, 51; as librarians, 240; and literacy, 56–57; as matching book binding to dress and decor, 56; men’s writing vs. speech of, 104; middle-class, 41; and mistress-maid relations, 247; and morality, 56; and newspapers and novels, 177; and novels as distracting, 193; as overinvested readers, 53; and Oxbridge fellows, 55; and passionate and disinterested reading, 56; as philistines, 56; and pie plates, 54–55, 56; and prize books, 163; as readers, 218; and reading aloud, 214, 215; seduced, 125; selfhood of, 54; and sex, 75; and shorthand, 97, 98, 100; survival of manuscripts through, 240; text as shield from demands of, 54–55; and textual transmission, 240; use of valued paper by, 236. See also gender; marriage; mothers; women

  Wood, Mrs. Henry, The Earl’s Heirs, 86–87, 88, 193

  Woodburn, James, 68

  wood pulp, 9, 236, 248, 249–50

  Woolf, Leonard and Virginia, “Are Too Many Books Written and Published?”, 29

  Woolf, Virginia: “How Should One Read a Book?”, 259; The Voyage Out, 50

  Worboise, Emma, Thornycroft Hall, 87, 284n10

  wordplay/puns, 23, 24–26, 28, 35, 92–93, 237. See also jokes

  Wordsworth, William, 107, 224

  working class, 17, 41, 93, 201, 218; and Bell, 202; and identification with literary characters, 167; and literacy, 13, 39–40, 69, 220; and Mayhew, 238; and middle-class self-criticism, 204; and morality and circumstances of reading, 192; and prize books, 162; and religious tract-distributors, 14; selection of books for, 164; and selfhood, 199; and tracts, 178–80; and value of paper, 220. See also social class

  Wrayburn, Eugene, 21

  writing, 94, 101, 216; in Dickens, 102; jokes about learning, 94; literal vs. literary, 95; and manual practices, 34; mechanics of, 23; street in turn reproduces a line of, 94. See also literacy

  Wynter, Andrew, 144

  Yeames, James, Gilbert Guestling, or, the Story of a Hymn-Book, 128, 209, 242

  Yonge, Charlotte Mary, 167, 188, 189, 196, 284n18; “Children’s Literature of the Last Century,” 89; “Children’s Literature: Part III,” 57, 166, 167–68, 199–200; The Pillars of the House, 282n35; P’s and Q’s, or, the Question of Putting Upon, 200; What Books to Lend and What to Give, 162, 163, 166, 200

  Youth’s Magazine or Evangelical Miscellany, The, 203

  Zeitlin, Judith, 219

  Zemka, Sue, 134

 

 

 


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