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History of reading tutorial 2: The reading and reception of literary texts – a case study of Robinson Crusoe
How have famous books been read and received by audiences in the past? This free course, History of reading tutorial 2: The reading and reception of literary texts a case study of Robinson Crusoe, is the second tutorial in a series designed to help users of the UK Reading Experience Database (UK RED) search, browse and use this resource, and explores the use of historical evidence to understand the reading and reception of a literary text, in this case Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe. The first tutorial in this series (Red_1) shows how historians have uncovered evidence of reading in the past, while the next tutorial (Red_3) demonstrates how evidence of a writers reading can add to our understanding of their literary output. UK RED is a resource built and maintained at The Open University.
Course learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:
- locate data in UK RED to help study the reading and reception of a literary text
- analyse individual reading experiences contained in UK RED
- understand how evidence from UK RED might be incorporated into arguments about the wider significance of reading as a cultural practice.
First Published: 09/08/2012
Updated: 16/02/2016
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Sadly not possible to contribute new data anymore, as links are dud; also dud on the RED website itself.
There are no entries for Peggy in Toyland, a 1920 children's book by Archibald Marshall, one of the very few books ever passed down to our 1930s-born mother, who passed it down to her own little children, who also had access to very few books to read. Noddy's escapades in toyland of course post-date the 1945 era.
Reading wasn't considered necessary for 1930s and 1940s children in their particular agricultural area, so those two older generations tell us, and they treated their 1950s and 1960s-born children in the same way. I wondered how far that extended across the country.
But there are gaps in the RED data, so it's not possible to answer my question from that source. There are only 15 entries of child readings for 1900-1945 in the agricultural labourer socio-economic class, from only 4 readers, and the data is not much different in the previous half-century for 1850-1899. I find it an interesting question though, that of reading by children of agricultural workers; whether they had access to books, opportunities to read, whether they were allowed to. Even in 1975 I remember my boyfriend, as he turned 18 and was taking his first job outside the home, being berated by his father for not working on the family land; it was expected to stay working at home for free, as he had done, and his father before him, and for that work to be done dawn til dusk without spending time on frivolous activities. No going out, no listening to music, certainly no reading. Even wanting to spend time on school homework was frowned upon by the agricultural working parents; they chose a school for their son which didn't set homework when they found that eleven-plus passers at grammar school meant an hour a night, and they weren't going to allow that.