Working-Class Readers and Literary Culture in North-East England: The Allendale Lead-Miners’ Libraries

Citation

Blair K (2022) Working-Class Readers and Literary Culture in North-East England: The Allendale Lead-Miners’ Libraries. Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens, 95. https://doi.org/10.4000/cve.10997

Abstract
This article investigates the surviving borrowers’ catalogues (c.1850–70) of the Allendale lead-miners’ libraries, situating these within the wider history of workplace libraries in the North-East of England. It considers popular reading habits in this community and the patterns of borrowing among individuals, suggesting that these give us insight into the way in which working-class readers used libraries, especially those founded through management initiatives, and their reading preferences in the mid-Victorian period.

Keywords
history of reading; library history; working-class literature; Northumberland; mining

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