Libraries for sociability, or libraries of reality? The purpose of British subscription and circulating libraries

Abstract

The private subscription and commercial circulating libraries of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England are frequently referred to by historians as ‘libraries for sociability’. But what is a ‘library for sociability’? Does holding card games in a library qualify? Under examination will be whether these kinds of lending libraries contained elements of ‘sociability’ at all or whether the phrase is just an academic conceit. This study will consider hard evidence, and therefore the name of Habermas will not be mentioned. Circulating libraries in popular holiday resorts in particular will be examined as well as the careers of certain individual librarians who aspired to attract the nobility and gentry. Were they really librarians or booksellers or perhaps just fancy goods salesmen? And how did a gang of bank robbers come to be connected to a ‘library for sociability’? How are an Edinburgh mugger and a pair of duellists connected to library history? These and other questions may or may not be answered.