Reading and the Working Classes in the Nineteenth Century: A Favourite Author

 As education permitted the working classes and those on restricted incomes to access literature, some authors grew in popularity: Defoe and Bunyan were popular but probably the most frequently read author in these groups was Charles Dickens. This blog post will explore why this is the case and how he grew so greatly in popularity. In 1888 Belfast Public Library found that “The Pickwick Papers” and “David Copperfield” were among its most often requested books and this observation was mirrored elsewhere. The impact of Dickens on the working classes can be illustrated by looking at the memoirs of working class people, from the extensive study of Jonathan Rose in “The Intellectual life of the British working classes” (2010, Yale University Press).

A boy called George Acorn who grew up in poverty in the East End of London managed to find sufficient money to purchase a used copy of David Copperfield. Having done this he was chided by his parents for the waste of money but he goes onto to describe the effect of reading the book on his family. “Dickens was a fairy musician to us filling our minds with a sweeter strain than the constant cry of hunger or the howling wind which often, taking advantage of the empty gate penetrated into the room”.

Acorn may have embellished his memoir, but even if he did, this inclusion shows that Dickens was important in how he interpreted his memories. This was true of others: some described their first employer as being like Wackford Squeers from “Nicholas Nickleby” or knowing men like Micawber (“Pickwick Papers) as they worked down a mine.

At first the critics of Dickens dismissed him as a caricaturist, but it became apparent that the working classes were approaching his books as contemporary documentaries. One reader commented about “Dombey and Son” that “it was no more than walking from one room into the next”. Yet these readers were not prisoners of the text, they did not adopt a Dickensian mindset without criticism. A circus performer was baffled by the portrayal of circus life in “Hard Times” as it did not correlate with his experience and some steelworkers in Methyr Tydfil did not comprehend “A Christmas Carol” explaining that “we could never understand why it was considered that Bob Cratchit was hard done by – a good job we thought he all had. And the description of the Christmas Party didn’t sound bad at all- great it must have been in Dickens’ day”.

After all these potential draw backs of Dickens, many have concluded that he provided a picture of nineteenth century society with which all the social classes could identify. His gift in particular to the working classes would seem to be his role in enabling them to be articulate about their situations. The “People’s Journal”, a periodical with a large circulation sponsored a Christmas story

competition in 1869. It was deluged with entries, many of which reflected the style and influence of Dickens.

For us, living in the twenty first century, which authors can be used to frame our experiences? Or do we need to look to the world of Television and the media to find portrayals of our society with which we can identify readily? When we do find them, do we accept them critically?

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