Lecture et culture littéraire chez les ouvriers du Nord-Est de l’Angleterre : les bibliothèques dans les mines de plomb d’Allendale

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.