This book is an original and fascinating look at the topos of the woman reader and its functioning in cultural debate between the accession of Queen Victoria an

Her analysis of images of influential women readers (in Harper's), intellectual women readers (in The Cornhill), independent women readers (in Belgravia), and p

Imagining women readers reassesses the cultural significance of women’s reading in the period 1789–1820. From the turbulent years following the French Revol

In 1957, Richard Altick's groundbreaking work The English Common Reader transformed the study of book history. Putting readers at the centre of literary culture