The Persistence of Reading: Governing Female Novel-Reading in Memoirs of Emma Courtney and Memoirs of Modern Philosophers

Abstract

Many young girls, from morning to night, hang over this pestiferous reading, to the neglect of industry, health, proper exercise, and to the ruin both of body and of soul. . . . The increase of novels will help to account for the increase of prostitution and for the numerous adulteries and elopements that we hear of in the different parts of the kingdom. (1792) 1 My avidity for books daily increased: I subscribed to a circulating library, and frequently read, or rather devoured -little careful in the selection -from ten to fourteen novels in a week. Evils of Adultery and Prostitution Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796) 2By the 1790s women's consumption of novels was a profoundly fraught yet persistently frequent affair. By then moralists, essayists, and critics had pronounced, with overwhelming consensus, that novels corrupted, seduced, and poisoned the minds and bodies of young female readers. However, an equally forceful consensus was formed by women who refused to listen to the warnings and continued to read, and even to write, this dangerous and contaminating form of literature. 3 As James Raven's bibliographic research

The prejudices of Mary Hays

“…It was precisely these kinds of consequences that so many found so troubling. The thought that precisely such women as Emma Courtney, overfed on a rich diet of Rousseau and Godwin, were in fact passing their spare time, not just thrilling at stories of adultery and seduction, but also partaking in the same, was no less horrifying than the prospect of Burke’s harridans paddling across the Channel (Binhammer, 2003, pp. 1–2).…”

“…There was a deeper moral anxiety. As a 1792 pamphlet entitled the Evils of Adultery and Prostitution foretold, ‘The increase of novels will help to account for the increase in prostitution and for the numerous adulteries and elopements that we hear of in the different parts of the kingdom (Binhammer, 2003, p. 1). Indeed, as an incipient medico-legal jurisprudence would come to insinuate, reading novels like Heloise could eventually make women mad (Gilbert and Gubar, 2000, pp.…”

“…Critical reception of such an ‘uncommon book’, as Robert Southey reported of Emma Courtney had been variable; ‘much praised and much abused’, but almost uniformly identified as being rather too ‘Godwinite’ (Luria, 1977, p. 527; Kelly, 1993, p. 110). Plainly written by an author whose ‘head seems to be full of the sophistries’ of Rousseau and Godwin ‘and writers of that class’, the Analytical Review observed (Kelly, 1993, p. 108; Binhammer, 2003, pp. 2–3; Ty, 1999, p. 135).…”

Internet-Based Communication

“…That fear dates back to the 18th century and the use of those newfangled gadgets called novels. “Many young girls, from morning to night, hang over this pestiferous reading, to the neglect of industry, health, proper exercise, and to the ruin both of body and of soul” (Binhammer, 2003, p. 1). In his 1778 essay on morality and literacy, British schoolmaster Vicesimus Knox opined that “If it be true that the present age is more corrupt than the preceding, the great multiplication of novels has probably contributed to its degeneracy, because fifty years ago there was scarcely a novel in the kingdom” (as cited in Brantlinger, 1998, p. 1).…”

“…In his 1778 essay on morality and literacy, British schoolmaster Vicesimus Knox opined that “If it be true that the present age is more corrupt than the preceding, the great multiplication of novels has probably contributed to its degeneracy, because fifty years ago there was scarcely a novel in the kingdom” (as cited in Brantlinger, 1998, p. 1). Other 18th century scholars predicted that “the increase of novels will help to account for the increase of prostitution and for the numerous adulteries and elopements that we hear about” (Binhammer, 2003, p. 1). Indeed, in a list of presenting ailments recommending admission to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, we find novel reading adjacent to nymphomania and opium addiction (Jerreat, 2013).…”