To read this content please select one of the options below:

THE DETERMINATION OF HISTORICAL POPULAR READING HABITS: A CASE STUDY

J.R.R. ADAMS (Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Cultra, Co. Down)

Journal of Documentation

ISSN: 0022-0418

Article publication date: 1 April 1989

184

Abstract

The study of popular reading habits is in many ways an important one. While the reading habits of the elite form the leading edge of intellectual thought, the vast majority of humanity have had, in the past as well as the present, different habits and aims. Popular literature has been bought right from the beginning by its readers, but from the seventeenth century there has been an interest in it from above, and from the nineteenth century some attempt to study it in detail. In order to recover the reading habits of a real community (Ulster) between 1700 and 1900, a number of methodologies were examined, and the conclusion was come to that a full examination of contemporary evidence was of the utmost importance. Of great use were several advertisements specifically aimed at the unsophisticated reader, dating from the mid‐eighteenth to the mid‐nineteenth century. The material recovered from these agreed well with other evidence. In addition, a contemporary eighteenth century classification of the physical types of popular reading material was found.

Citation

ADAMS, J.R.R. (1989), "THE DETERMINATION OF HISTORICAL POPULAR READING HABITS: A CASE STUDY", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 45 No. 4, pp. 318-326. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026848

Publisher

:

MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 1989, MCB UP Limited

Related articles