How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain

by Price, Leah

Obscene Publications Act of 1857, 196

  Ogden, R., 40, 208

  Oliphant, Margaret, 166–67; Kirsteen, 55, 68, 261

  “One Thing at a Time,” 188, 190, 191

  Ong, Walter, 104

  Orwell, George, Animal Farm, 28–29

  “Our Ladies’ Chatterbox,” 97

  Oxford University Press, 28

  Paddington Dust Wharf District, 161

  page(s): and clothes, 248; dog-eared, 257; faded, 257; and groceries, 245; and paper, 26; smell of, 256–57; as street, 94; uncut, 19, 70, 197, 240, 249, 256, 257, 259. See also book(s)

  Paget, F. E., Lucretia, 24, 186

  Pall Mall Gazette, 142

  pamphlets, 239

  paper, 236; absorbency of, 9, 11; and Addison, 234–35; body as, 102–3; character as piece of, 94; cheapening of, 11, 15; circulation of, 110; and class, 180–81; for curlpapers, 10, 99, 231; for dress patterns, 54–55, 56, 219; durability of, 225; exceptionality and typicality of, 223; as food wrapping, 8, 92, 93, 226, 231–32, 233–34, 239, 250, 252; high cost of, 5; and it-narratives, 231; and Knight, 235–36; as legible grocery wrapping, 252; life cycle of, 11, 110, 227, 238, 239–40; for lighting fire, 232, 233, 236; machine-made, 141; making of, 9, 11, 14, 144, 229–30; and Mayhew, 221–45, 246, 248–49, 255–56; as mortal, 251; nontextual, practical uses for, 160; and pages, 26; for pie plates, 10, 27, 31, 54–55, 56, 219; and preservation vs. destruction, 225–26; price of, 249–54; production of, 141; properties of, 17; rag, 28; rag substitutes for, 249; raw material for, 127–28; recycling of, 12, 14, 15, 221, 239, 288n7; and relations among rich and poor, 235; resale of, 9, 148, 221, 222, 223, 231, 238, 239, 242; restricted imports of, 9; scarcity of, 8–9, 206; scarcity vs. surfeit of, 216; for sealing food, 9; and sex, 77; sizing for, 9; successive handlers of, 183; taxes on, 9, 38, 141, 219, 220, 225, 249, 290n31; as uniting classes through handling, 239; use by pastry-cook, 239; use by trunk-maker, 239; uses of, 219–20; for wiping excrement, 219, 220, 226–27, 231, 233; and wood pulp, 219, 220, 249–50; for wrapping, 220. See also book(s); newspapers; wastepaper

  paratext, 110, 171, 172

  parchment, 28, 102–3, 132

  parents, 12, 13, 15, 90, 91; and books as shields, 57; books from, 109, 162, 163, 164, 167; and censorship, 203; and found manuscript, 251; influence of, 165, 189; lies to, 202. See also children; mothers

  Park, Rev. Harrison G., Father’s and Mother’s Manual and Youth’s Instructor, 52

  Parks, Lisa, 224

  “Parlour Library,” 62

  Pawnbrokers’ Gazette, The, 189–90

  Pearson, Jacqueline, Women’s Reading in Britain, 285n27

  Pedersen, Susan, 153, 210

  penny dreadfuls, 11, 201

  Penny Magazine, 141

  penny serials, 206

  Pepys, Samuel, 96

  Percy, Thomas, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 236

  periodicals, 12, 141–42, 202

  personification, 133, 134. See also it-narratives

  Peters, John Durham, Speaking into the Air, 280n6

  Peterson, Carla, The Determined Reader, 274n12

  Petrarch, Francis, 132

  Petroski, Henry, 23

  Pfister, Joel, 22

  philanthropists, 155, 206

  Phiz [H. K. Browne], 99; “Our Housekeeping,” The Personal History of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, 100

  Phonetic Journal, 97

  phonograph, 96, 97

  Picker, John M., 95

  Pickering, Samuel F., Jr., 285n21

  “Pioneer Work in China,” 244–45

  Piozzi, Hester, 132–33

  Pitman, Isaac, 99; Stenographic Soundhand, 96

  Pitmanism, 96–97

  Pitman reprints, 99

  Plato, 102

  Platonism, 32

  Plotz, John: “Out of Circulation,” 266n15; Portable Property, 285n24

  Polastron, Lucien X., Books on Fire, 286n1

  poor people, 9, 11, 17, 87, 162, 231, 235, 261

  Poovey, Mary: Genres of the Credit Economy, 278n13; “The Limits of the Universal Knowledge Project,” 266n10; Uneven Developments, 95, 98–99, 101

  Pope, Alexander, 9–10

  Popper, Karl, 32

  Popular German Reader, 98

  pornography, 19, 196

  Porteus, Bishop, 210

  postage, 145, 146, 286n30; and payment on delivery vs. prepayment, 145, 147–48; penny, 14

  postal system, 6, 35, 145, 216–17; reform of, 146, 199. See also junk mail; mail

  Potato Famine, 206

  pothooks, 94, 95, 96, 99

  powerless, the, 87, 139, 203

  Pratt, Sarah G. S., First Homes, 276n3

  Price, Leah: The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel, 282n30; “Stenographic Masculinity,” 95, 275n16

  printed matter, 16, 32–33, 94, 225–26; as chain, 14–15; free and subsidized, 12; and human relationships, 113; and manuscripts, 216; physicality of, 219; and postage, 286n30

  printing, 20; changes in, 11; cost of raw materials for, 141; employment in, 141; speed and cost of, 141; and steam-printing, 141

  print media vs. digital media, 7

  print metaphor, 101–2

  privacy, 62, 183

  privy, 7, 18. See also paper: for wiping excrement

  production, 35; cost of, 144; traditional focus on, 20

  “Progress of Fiction as an Art, The,” 241

  prosopopoeia, 122

  Prosser, Sophie Amelia, Susan Osgood’s Prize, 68–69, 113

  prostitutes, 12, 190

  Protestantism, 16, 39, 40, 135, 157, 164, 203–4

  pseudomemoirs, 250

  Public Libraries Act of 1850, 62, 244

  public/private spectrum, 61–62, 175

  public sphere, 51, 62, 260

  publishing, 20, 36, 90, 141

  Puccini, Giacomo, and Henri Murger, La Bohème, 237

  Pugh, S. S., 133

  pulping, 7

  Punch, 51, 52, 62, 186, 276n30, 281n16, 283n2; “An Appeal Case. House of Lords,” 58; “Bachelor Days. IV,” 281n16; “Emancipation,” 60, 61; “The Honeymoon,” 64; “Married for Money—The Honeymoon,” 63; “A Perfect Wretch,” 65; “Report of the Select Committee on Parliamentary Petitions,” 232; and “Singular Letter from the Regent of Spain,” 204–6; “A Soft Answer,” 187; “The Waning of the Honeymoon,” 66

  Punch’s Prize Novels, 85

  puns. See wordplay/puns

  Quarterly, 142, 211

  Quire of Paper, 118, 119

  Rabelais, François, 141

  race, 24–25, 237

  Radway, Jan, 75; Reading the Romance, 51

  Rae, W. Fraser, 177

  Railway Anecdote Book, The, 24–25

  “Railway Libraries,” 62

  “Railway Literature,” 24

  railway novels, 62

  Raitt, Suzanne, 222

  Ransome, Arthur, 163

  Raven, James, The Business of Books, 16

  Raverat, Gwen, 9

  Reach, Angus, 121

  reader response, 20, 90

  readers, 107; abstraction of, 31; alignment with identity of characters, 166–67, 168; association with other, 168; and authors, 12, 15, 67, 81, 218; as binding-blind and edition-deaf, 7; bodies of successive and simultaneous, 12; and characters, 175; collective, commercialized, 258–59; communities of, 151; cultural criticism of annotations of, 20; different classes of, 17; as disembodied, 31, 220; fellow, 140; good, 33; and identity, 18; implied, 8; internalist account of, 131; lack of belonging to, 8; lower classes as, 27; and niche marketing, 164–68; relationships forged with fellow, 18; of religious tracts, 151–53; self-made, 13, 86, 124; and social inferiors, 15; and social status, 18; and strangers, 51; targeting of, 162; text as poison to, 15; as unclassed, 31

  reading: absence of vs. absence of use, 10; absorptive, 72, 80–81, 88, 89, 190; as acceptable, 189–90; ambivalence about, 67; antisocial, 3; avoidance of coupling characters with, 45–47; as barrier, 81; and breakdown of marriage,
58–59, 61; as bridge, 51, 81; and children, 2; choice of material for, 140; and circulation, 5–6; and class, 105–6; close, 130; and collecting, 111, 112; and consumption, 34; different agendas served by, 10; distant, 21; evidence of, 19; as feminine source of interiority, individuality, or authenticity, 51; and food wrapping, 240, 242, 255, 257; and Gissing, 258; half-remembered, 92; and handling, 5–6, 20, 257; as heroically antisocial, 67; history of, 34, 131; and identity, 139; and indigestion, 140; and individualism, 176; in institutional context, 90; instrumentality of, 89–90; as interpersonal act, 67–68; and interpersonal bonds, 14; and interpersonal exchanges, 190–91; as interpretation, 8, 21–22, 93; lack of interest in, 14; lexicon for mental act of, 7; logistical, 21; manual dimension of, 22; and manual labor, 101; and market value, 57; mental act of, 8; as morally corrupting, 69–70; of new books, 10; of newspapers by strangers, 15; and nonverbal operations, 23; opportunity cost of, 91; and perceptual senses, 32–33; for pleasure, 89; as poaching, 70; prevention of, 81; and privacy, 61; privileging of, 20–22; recuperative, 21; as reductively other-directed, 67; refusal of, 8; remembered, 80, 94; representation of, 12, 14, 16; rhetorical, 62; and schoolroom, 101; secondhand, 258; as secret vs. sham, 74; and selfhood vs. dependence, 216; shared act of, 175; silent, 16, 67–68; sociable, 82; and social barriers, 175; as social cement, 61; solipsistic, 62; as subversive, 75–76; as term in Dickens, 21–22, 23; and trade, 101; uncritical, 21; as uniting, 239; used to define relation between two spheres, 57; vulgar owning without, 84, 85; as weapon of weak, 56; and white-collar spaces, 101; without buying, 84–85

  reading aloud, 9, 12, 84, 176, 213–16

  “Reading and Readers,” 201–2

  reading copies, 2–3, 4, 35

  realism, 12, 25, 26, 27–28, 59, 67, 77, 108, 221, 251, 253

  “Recent Novels,” 211

  reception, 13

  reception history, 7, 19, 20, 34, 74, 130

  reception studies, 260

  reception theory, 131, 219

  Record Office, 145

  Reed, C., 157, 158

  Reeser, Todd W., and Steven D. Spalding, 265n8

  Reformation, 39, 233

  reformist genres, 239

  Regency era, 3

  rejection history, 7–8

  religious magazines, 117, 118

  religious press, 41, 131–32

  religious publications: and circulation, 119; and it-narratives, 110–20; sale of, 114–15, 117

  religious relics, 15, 169, 229

  Religious Text Society, 112, 151, 204, 205, 243, 251; magazines of, 132; publications of, 133–34; and reward books, 162

  religious tract distribution, 155–64, 243; blame for, 184; and book collecting, 182–83; channels for, 150–51; and Collins, 207–13, 215; and dependence, 216; and gifts, 109, 150–62, 201, 206, 217; and Gosse, 253; and History of a Religious Tract, 111; jokes about, 176, 204, 210; networks for, 139, 145; and novels, 206–7, 213; and pickpocketing, 202, 211; and postal system, 216–17; and providentialism, 251–52; and readers’ and characters’ identity, 167; representation of, 206–7; and social class, 175, 178, 198, 199; and Thackeray, 201; and upper class, 153

  religious tract distributors, 121–22, 134; mockery of, 204–13; and working-class, 14

  religious tracts, 144, 150–64, 179, 203–4, 219, 285n24, 289n26; and advertising circulars, 217; and authors, 151; and bulk mail, 216–17; and children, 165; and Collins, 207–13; and face-to-face interactions, 152; and familial power struggles, 73; and family, 193; and givers and takers, 152; giving vs. reading in, 153; and identity, 164, 165, 166, 167; and inner life, 16; and interpersonal relations, 17; and it-narratives, 109, 153; as linking readers, 12, 15; as matching readers, 139; and Mayhew, 250; as medicine, 159; as mirrored in novels, 207; and modern city, 155; and niche marketing, 164–68; and novels, 176; pagans as tearing up, 39; proliferation of, 150; providentialism of, 251–52; read under wrong circumstances, 189–90; and realist novel, 28; refusal to read, 212; and relation to books vs. people, 110; as required reading, 14; resale value of, 206; and self-assertion, 193; and self-referentiality, 155; for servants, 178–80; and servants’ dependence, 184; as silent messenger, 132; and social relationships, 151–52, 155, 175, 194; and sowing motif, 145–46; subsidized, 15, 17; and supply and demand, 176; as talking and walking, 133–34; and upper class as moral arbiters, 153; value of, 156–57; visits through, 155; and waste paper, 243–45

  religious tract societies, 151; and class, 178; and gifts vs. sales, 217; and giving, 178; and markets, 164; satires on, 156

  Religious Tract Society, 111, 150, 206; and Hill, 217; and niche marketing, 165; and tract distribution as pickpocketing, 202, 211

  reprints, 12, 17–18, 20, 143, 247

  rereading, 247

  resale, 176, 249, 289n22

  resale market, 31, 249

  resale value, 160–61, 177

  “Review of Castle Richmond,” 29

  “Review of Illustrations of Political Economy,” 199

  reward books, 162, 163, 164, 192

  Reynolds, John Stewart, and W. H. Griffith Thomas, 157, 208

  Reynolds, Kimberley, 102, 162

  Richards, Thomas, 265n6

  Richardson, A., 90, 102

  Richardson, Samuel, 203; Clarissa, 67–68; Letters, 89; Pamela, 233, 234, 259, 286n30

  Richmond, Legh, 133

  rich people, 9, 11, 87, 231, 235, 261

  Rickards, Maurice, and Michael Twyman, 102, 149, 195, 208

  Rigby, Elizabeth, 193

  Robbins, Bruce, 175, 189

  Roberts, Lewis C., 196

  Robinson, Howard, 217

  Robson, Catherine, 88

  Roche, Regina Maria, The Children of the Abbey, 197

  romance, 14, 26, 60, 112, 113, 202–3, 212, 254, 259; and Cervantes, 84; dangers of reading, 113; and Mayhew, 251; patriarchal content of, 51; and Thackeray, 88; and tracts, 167; and Trollope, 59

  Romantics, 91

  Rose, Jonathan, The Intellectual Life, 83

  Rosman, Doreen M., 209

  Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 102

  runaway, 127–28

  Ruskin, John, 30, 140–41; The Stones of Venice, 21

  Russia, 1

  Ruth, Jennifer, 95

  Rymer, James Malcom, The White Slave, 206

  “Sailors and Their Hardships on Shore, The,” 157

  Sala, G. A., “A Journey Due North,” 74

  Sarah Ellis, 68

  Sargent, George Etell: The Story of a Pocket Bible, 109, 111, 112–13, 115, 116, 120, 162, 165, 178, 180, 182, 183–84, 189, 190, 277n5; “The Story of a Pocket Bible, 1st series,” 114; “The Story of a Pocket Bible, 2nd Series,” 121

  Sartre, Jean-Paul, 51, 83

  satire, 17, 54, 77, 176, 202, 204–13, 240–41, 242

  Saturday Review, 29

  Scarry, Elaine, 32, 33

  scatological humor, 77, 233, 236, 242. See also jokes

  Schneider, Mark A., 265n8

  schools, 1, 11, 14, 88, 89, 100, 104, 105, 204. See also education

  school textbooks, 14, 88

  Schreiner, Olive, The Story of an African Farm, 72–73

  Scott, Patrick, 162

  Scott, Walter, 79, 173; Waverley, 33, 278n14; Waverley novels, 89, 291n3

  secondhand trade, 12, 90, 176, 219, 227, 242, 246, 248–49

  secular fiction, 17

  secularism, 16

  secular press, 139, 166, 176, 204

  Sedgwick, Eve, 21

  seduction narratives, 124, 125

  Seed, David, 126

  self: books imagined to possess, 120; boundaries of, 76; development of, 107

  self-assertion, 193

  self-creation, 90

  self-denial, 69

  self-fashioning, 17

  selfhood, 10, 71, 82; and bildungsroman, 68; and David Copperfield, 83

  self-improvement, 167

  selfishness, 69, 82

  self-referentiality, 76, 77, 110, 116, 142, 153, 155

  self-restrain
t, 69

  sensation fiction, 177, 210, 212, 283n2

  senses, perceptual, 31, 32–33

  serials, taxes on, 38

  servants, 120, 238; and abjection of books, 220; and absorption in books, 190; access to books, 178, 283n8; and anxieties about shared books, 194; and bookbindings, 116, 178; bookbindings as tempting disobedience, 186; book handling by, 177; books as inflaming desires of, 186; and children, 163, 188; as corrupting, 202–3; dehumanized, 177; and dependence and religious tracts, 184; in Dickens, 105; and dirt, 183, 184, 185, 186, 200; dusting by, 175–76, 177, 182, 185, 186, 192, 240, 283n5, 284n10; eavesdropping by, 188; and education, 189; and family prayers, 214; hands of, 183, 184; industry of, 182; and jokes, 26, 186; literacy of, 178, 188; literalistic, 94–95; locks against, 36, 183, 283n7, 284n16; and masters, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 165, 175, 177–93, 198, 199–200, 202, 240; and masters’ apparent reading, 57–58; and mistress-maid relations, 35, 188, 247; newspapers shared with, 178, 183, 197; and page sizing, 9; and paper wrapping, 93; paternalism toward, 189; procurement of novels on sly from, 15; proper handling of books by, 185; and reading, 15; reading of, 175–76; reading under acceptable circumstances by, 190–92; and religious publications, 116, 178–80, 184; respect from, 186–87; selection of books for, 163, 167, 188, 199–200; and sexuality, 185, 198; and social class, 178; and Story of a Pocket Bible, 112–13, 165; use of master’s reading matter by, 197, 199–200, 237; use of mistress’s books by, 35, 188; use of newspapers by, 178, 183, 197; use of reading matter by, 8, 13, 197, 199–200, 237; use of valued paper by, 236; and wives, 55; workrooms of, 101

  Sewell, Anna, Black Beauty, 125

  Sewell, Elizabeth Missing: Cleve Hall, 47; Gertrude, 68; Laneton Parsonage, 202; Margaret Percival, 68

  Sewell, William, Hawkstone, 241

  sexuality, 66, 69, 75, 77, 197–98; and book borrowing, 197; and book’s vulnerability, 124; in George Eliot, 62; and marginalia, 197; master-servant, 198; and reading aloud, 215; and servants, 185. See also gender; men; wives; women

  Shakespeare, William, 87, 88, 249

  Shaw, Graham, “South Asia,” 281n19

  Sheridan, Richard, The Rivals, 270n2

  Sherman, William H., 134, 225–26, 233, 282n35

  Sherwood, Mary, 123, 161; “The History of Susan Gray,” 183; “Intimate Friends,” 203; “Little Henry and his bearer,” 181–82; “The Red Book,” 91