Women's Reading in Britain 1750-1835: A Dangerous Recreation
Jacqueline Pearson's book is a valuable work. It is brimming with quotation after quotation about the experience of reading in the eighteenth century. It concentrates on women reading, though not exclusively so, for she presents a broad picture of people reading—children, men, women, families, the rich, and the poor. As Pearson states in her conclusion, she was herself astounded by the many literary references to women reading that were to be found: "The woman reader is a key icon for this period" (219-220). Her book proves her assertion to be true, and she makes abundantly clear how reading began to be woven into the fabric of women's lives.
Pearson has searched high and low, in the canon of great works and outside of it, to come up with a treasure trove of eighteenth-century texts that present women reading. Canonical authors such as Samuel Richardson, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen are discussed with considerable expertise, as are lesser- known writers. The book also gives special attention to women writers like Mary Robinson and Charlotte Smith, and Pearson notes that many female readers gravitated to books written by other women. The Lady's Magazine is a major source for this book, and it provides a good way to gauge public opinion about different views on women's reading. It would have been helpful if Pearson had written about the publication history of this periodical and about its readership, since it is a resource that she calls about so frequently. The same is true for some of the lesser known books that she cites. For instance, the novel Emily by Henry Kept (63) is referred to on several occasions, so Pearson could have provided a plot summary and biographical sketch of its author.
Although her focus is on fiction, she examines different categories of reading material, such as the Bible, scientific works, classical texts, foreign languages, and philosophy. Pearson collects examples of the many ways that the act of reading has been viewed, ranging from a sign of idleness to a sign of the "proper performance of religious duties" (7). The strongest sections of the book tend to be those dealing at some length with the work of a particular author. Her sections on Ann Radcliffe (100-05), Elizabeth Carter (137-142), and Charlotte Lennox (201-06) are especially strong. Through her wide-ranging examples, Pearson shows that this was a time when "the learned lady" was sometimes praised and sometimes stigmatized (15); a time when "fondness for reading" (101) did not always qualify one to be a heroine (87).
In some places, there are so many examples from different books joined together that the effect is rather dizzying, with not enough attention paid to chronology or to the differences between the texts. Often several sources might be used over the course of a few sentences, but there will only be one endnote for them all, which means that one has to count through the citations and guess which source applies to which quotation. For instance, note number 24 on page 228 cites five different items: an edition of Samuel Richardson's letters, a book about Richardson, an article about another writer, an edition of Claris, and an edition of Richardson's letters. Sometimes critics who are quoted are not named in the text, but only in the endnote, with phrases from a few different critics being joined together to make up one sentence.
Nonetheless, Pearson's subject matter is fascinating, and she looks at the "pleasures and perils of reading" (87, 122) from many different perspectives. Even the physical perils are dealt with—she identifies several literary references to fires started when someone was reading by candlelight (107, 217). Reading also created a minefield of moral issues, particularly in relationship to the novel. There was good reading material and there was bad reading material, but opinion varied on some books (Fielding's Tom Jones is cited as an example). Elizabeth Carter, who enjoyed Fielding's novels, was known for her own extensive reading, but she refused to read "Voltaire, Rousseau, or other French sceptics: “ ‘I should as soon think of playing with a toad or a viper, as of reading such blasphemy and impiety’” (139). Carter's friend Elizabeth Montagu disagreed with her on the subject, but, even so, one is impressed by Carter's firm stance.
Pearson's book functions something like a reference work, with its collection of quotations. A little known story about Samuel Johnson is an especially good find. He is quoted as saying "Turn your daughter loose into your library." If only this encouraging quotation were as well known as Boswell's pejorative anecdote about a woman preaching. On this front, Pearson joins other scholars (such as James Basker, Norma Clarke, Isobel Grundy, Kathleen Nulton Kemmerer, and Alvaro Ribeiro) who have been modifying critical perceptions of Johnson's views of women and literature. The anecdote that Pearson uses comes from the memoirs of Frances Sheridan, who was worried that Johnson would think she let her daughter read anything. Frances Sheridan said she kept
‘from her all such books as are not calculated, by their moral tendency, for the perusal of youth. ‘” Johnson disagreed: “ ‘Then you are a fool, madam! . . . Turn your daughter loose into your library; if she is well inclined, she will choose only nutritious food; if otherwise, all your precautions will avail nothing to prevent her following the natural bent of her inclinations.’ (42)
This is a wonderful story to discuss in light of Johnson's Rambler No. 4. It is one of the many memorable anecdotes to be found in Jacqueline Pearson's book, and no doubt her own readers will be going to the library to find out more about the intriguing sources she has discussed in this useful study.
