Class structures and readership
Title page of: Private educationMany female authors from the upper echelons of society produced works of instruction for young ladies that emphasised moral and religious education. The Foyle Special Collections Library has an array of advice books that date from the Romantic to the Victorian era, one of which is Elizabeth Appleton’s Private education: or, a Practical plan for the studies of young ladies: with an address to parents, private governesses, and young ladies. (1816)
Appleton was a British writer and educator, who in her book, emphasises the importance of literature on young minds: ‘Of all the agents in education, none are more powerful than books’. However, Appleton was adamant in warning her readers of frivolous romances, ‘all poetry … should be selected as free from love descriptions and satire as possible … if we do not wish to implant the seeds of affection, romance, and ill-nature in our pupils.’
The ‘trash’ romance Appleton refers to was the genre that was a prominent feature of the chapbook. Therefore, it seems unlikely for upper-class women to have read, or have been encouraged to read chapbooks. Intriguingly, however, Appleton provides an example where she compares a young lady who pretends to have a pain in order to retire to her room and ‘clandestinely peruse a book’ with a man who steals a leg of mutton. Appleton goes on to claim that the comparison is made to show that vice is still vice. So, can this be an indication that upper-class women secretly defied social norms by reading illicit chapbooks and their like?
Francois Fenelon’s Instructions for the education of a daughter, first published in France in the 17th century was translated into English in the 18th. The Instructions provided a detailed account of how ladies and women from highbrow society should act. He claimed that ‘there are books which I would advise you never to admit into your closet. In which Rank I place Books of Philosophy and Romances … [which] may perplex your thoughts.’ These ideas of behaviour for women were thus perpetuated by the male conscious and ideology, leading us to consider to what extent women adhered to these instructions in private.
In this exhibition
- Introduction
- Women and 18th century print
- Women in print
- Class structures and readership
- Working-class women
- Female representations in chapbooks
- Further contexts
- Select bibliography