The Woman Reader
The history of women readers and the controversies their reading has inspired since the beginning of the written word. Belinda Jack traces a history marked by persistent efforts to prevent women from gaining literacy and to censor their reading. She also recounts the counterefforts of remarkable women - and some men - who have fought back and battled for the educational enfranchisement of girls. The book introduces dissatisfied female readers of many different eras - ancient poetesses disappointed by the limitations of male poets, Babylonian princesses calling for women's voices to be heard, rebellious nuns who wanted to share their writings with others, confidantes questioning Reformation theologians about their writings, famous and infamous wives whose reading provoked their husbands, and nineteenth-century New England mill girls who risked their jobs to smuggle novels into the workplace. Today, a new set of distinctions between male and female readers has emerged, and Jack explores such contemporary topics as the commitment of mothers vs. fathers to children's literacy, women's vocal demands for censorship in school libraries, and the impact of women readers in their new status as the prime movers in the world of reading.
3.6 out of 5 based on 6 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Literary Studies & Criticism |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
336 |
| RRP |
|
| Date of Publication |
May 2012 |
| ISBN |
978-0300120455 |
| Publisher |
Yale University Press |
| |
The history of women readers and the controversies their reading has inspired since the beginning of the written word. Belinda Jack traces a history marked by persistent efforts to prevent women from gaining literacy and to censor their reading. She also recounts the counterefforts of remarkable women - and some men - who have fought back and battled for the educational enfranchisement of girls. The book introduces dissatisfied female readers of many different eras - ancient poetesses disappointed by the limitations of male poets, Babylonian princesses calling for women's voices to be heard, rebellious nuns who wanted to share their writings with others, confidantes questioning Reformation theologians about their writings, famous and infamous wives whose reading provoked their husbands, and nineteenth-century New England mill girls who risked their jobs to smuggle novels into the workplace. Today, a new set of distinctions between male and female readers has emerged, and Jack explores such contemporary topics as the commitment of mothers vs. fathers to children's literacy, women's vocal demands for censorship in school libraries, and the impact of women readers in their new status as the prime movers in the world of reading.
Reviews
The Guardian
Hermione Lee
“Jack has done an impressive job of synthesising the scholarly work on book-history that has radically changed what we know about women's reading habits through the ages. In her thorough and informative book, she steadily demonstrates that the woman reader has not been nearly such an isolated or exceptional figure, historically, as was once thought.”
07/07/2012
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The Scotsman
Lesley McDowell
“Splendid, fascinating ... What Jack pinpoints throughout is the close relationship between women, what they read and how they feel about it — how closely they identify with the heroine of a novel and her fate, for example. Male readers, in surveys conducted through the 20th century, are not as eager, she notes, to link specific books with moments of crisis in their lives as women are. Perhaps surprisingly, though, when she reaches the present-day woman reader, there is no mention of the e-book.”
30/06/2012
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The Times
Jeanette Winterson
“Lively and erudite … Jack makes a strong argument for the effect of the Reformation on women’s reading. Both Erasmus and Luther were passionate about women’s literacy. The Bible in the vernacular, instead of the scholarly Latin or Greek, was much more accessible to women. A woman at home could teach herself to read in her own language far more easily than she could learn Latin or Greek with its expensive primers and texts. It is difficult to deny a pious woman the right to read Holy Writ. The problem of course is that once she can read the Bible she will certainly want to read other things too.”
16/06/2012
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The Independent
Alison Baverstock
“… a sustainedly nourishing read … Belinda Jack's detail is consistently rich … Jack could have covered the expansion of female-orientated genres ("chick lit"; women's commercial fiction; today's populist magazines with huge sales) as well as reporting some of the associated structures that developed: Women in Publishing; the Orange Prize; literacy initiatives such as Book Trust's Bookstart, which has taught new generations of (primarily) mothers to read to their children.”
30/06/2012
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The Sunday Times
Bee Wilson
“... the striking thing about Jack’s story is the many examples it gives of women who could and did read in past centuries. In the Babylonian city of Sippar, around 3,500 years ago, there were significant numbers of female scribes ... Jack’s nebulous narrative offers few conclusions except to tell us, repeatedly, that female readers are more “intriguing” than male ones. She never pins down quite why this might be. Then again, it is hard to be definitive about what reading means for women, because, as Jack rightly observes, it is, ultimately, a secret activity.”
01/07/2012
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The Sunday Telegraph
Judith Flanders
“… her prejudices, when they peek out, can be startling … Jack disregards the power and reach of 18th-century circulating libraries, and barely mentions magazines, with only a single line on Addison and Steele’s widely read Tatler. In her discussion on the 19th century there is nothing on Gothic novels nor their successors, sensation fiction, supposedly a women’s genre, and just one lonely mention of penny dreadfuls and working-class Sunday newspapers. Perhaps this is because the book is, essentially, about upper-class women. In the 19th century, Jack’s representative readers are Jane Austen, the journalist Harriet Martineau, Lady Louisa Stuart, and the wife of the philosopher Thomas Carlyle.”
26/06/2012
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