Women's Reading in Britain : 1750-1835 : A Dangerous Recreation... by Jacquelyn Pearson (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews273 Although I lack the competence to evaluate the importance of the scientific materials at hand, I can say that some of Renooz's ideas are appealing, such as the interconnectedness of what are routinely defined as separate disciplines . Allen's approach to these writers has a certain resonance with the ideas ofsuch thinkers as contemporary psychologist, Jean Baker Miller, with her theory ofthe self-in-relation, and the Franco-Antillian critic and novelist, Edouard Glissant, whose Poetics ofRelation looks for a synthesis-genesis of continued connection. Although there are some minor proofreading problems ("Renooz would broach no opposition" should be "Renooz would brook no opposition" 1 1 7), Allen's work shows a meticulous reading. He is clearly taken with his subjects and writes lovingly of their struggles to create an enduring discursive self-in-relation, entering into dialogue with each ofthem in relating their poignant stories. The book should provoke interest in nineteenth-century literary history or women's studies. Margot MillerHood College Pearson, Jacquelyn. Women's Reading in Britain :1750-1835 : A Dangerous Recreation... Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. ISBN: 0-521-58439-6. Pp. 300. In Women's Reading in Britain: 1750-1835, Jacqueline Pearson examines the symbolic nature ofthe reading woman during a period of increasing female literacy. Her analysis of both fictional and historical women readers seeks to ". . . clarif[y] our understanding of women's cultural position in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. . ." while at the same time allowing us to comprehend ". . . better the authors, male as well as female, who wrote with this audience in mind" (iv). As the book's subtitle, "A Dangerous Recreation ," reminds us, reading women were not always viewed favorably in contemporary novels, essays and conduct books or even in the testimonies of women readers themselves. Nevertheless, female literacy and the art of reading were often credited by these same sources as contributing to the creation of the "domestic woman" of the nineteenth century. This persistent ambivalence to the image ofthe reading woman serves as the book's primary focus and reflects cultural transformations in early nineteenth-century Britain which reach beyond the question ofgender and literacy. Through well-documented examples from a wide range of texts, Pearson aptly demonstrates that the contradictory attitudes in this debate resist classification either by gender or political perspective. Women writers may treat the subject of the reading woman with greater skepticism than do their male colleagues. Similarly , both liberal and conservative writers adopt ambiguous stances on the value ofreading novels. As Pearson's argument develops, however, it appears that the contested area is not the act of reading itself, but rather the choice of texts and the circumstances in which reading occurs. The conservative Hannah More's 274Women in French Studies ideal woman is "a reader, but a reader compliant to both domestic ideology and the authority ofthe author" (89). Thus, the ability to read is often associated with the qualities of a good wife and mother. Literacy may even be consider an asset for servants as documented in a 1773 manual where it is noted that a lady's maid should be able to "read well aloud" (186). Concerning the types ofreading appropriate for women, it is not surprising that the novel provokes the most contentious responses. Pearson lays out the parameters of this cultural debate convincingly in a chapter devoted to women and novel reading. By concentrating on four specific texts (Lennox's The Female Quixote, Barrett's The Heroine, Austen's Northanger Abbey, and Green's Scotch Novel Reading), she assists her readers in following the evolution ofthis debate over the almost 100 year time span under study. Similarly, chapters on where and how women should read or the "perils and pleasures" of reading as documented in the memoirs and correspondence of historical women readers offer fascinating insights into both the real and symbolic value of a woman engaged in the act of reading. For example, the "elision oftextuality and sexuality," (ix) a recurrent motifthroughout the book, takes on a new dimension when we discover that the prohibition against reading in bed relates not only to a metaphorical presumption ofsensuality but also to the risk offalling asleep while...