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Robert Darnton, Roger Chartier, and others have written much on the history of reading in the Old Regime, but this is the first broad study of reading to focus on the period after 1800. How and why did people understand texts as they did in modern France? In answering this question, James Allen moves easily from one interpretive framework to another and draws on a wide range of sources--novels, diaries, censor reports, critical reviews, artistic images, accounts of public and private readings, and the letters that readers sent to authors about their books. As he analyzes reading "in the public eye," the author explores the formation of "interpretive communities" during the years when reading silently and alone gradually became more common than reading aloud in a group. In the Public Eye discusses printing, publishing, literacy, schooling, criticism, and censorship, to study the social, cultural, economic, and political forces that shaped French interpretive practice. Examining the art and act of reading by different audiences, it discloses the mentalities of literate people for whom few other historical records exist. The book will be essential reading for those interested in modern French history, post-structuralist literary theory and criticism, reader-response theory and criticism, and social and intellectual history in general.Originally published in 1991.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Books and reading --- Appraisal of books --- Books --- Choice of books --- Evaluation of literature --- Literature --- Reading, Choice of --- Reading and books --- Reading habits --- Reading public --- Reading --- Reading interests --- Reading promotion --- History --- Appraisal --- Evaluation --- France --- Intellectual life

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What happens to books as they live in our long-term memory? Why do we find some books entertaining and others not? And how does literary influence work on writers in different ways? Grounded in the findings of empirical psychology, this book amends classic reader-response theory and attends to neglected aspects of reading that cannot be explained by traditional literary criticism. Reading arises from a combination of two kinds of mental work: automatic and controlled processes. Automatic processes, such as the ability to see visual symbols as words, are the result of constant practice; controlled processes, such as predicting what might occur next in a story, arise from readers' conscious use of skills and background knowledge. When we read, automatic and controlled processes work together to create the "gist" of reading, the constant interplay between these two kinds of processes. Andrew Elfenbein not only explains how we read today, but also uses current knowledge about reading to consider readers of past centuries, arguing that understanding gist is central to interpreting the social, psychological, and political impact of literary works. The result is the first major revisionary account of reading practices in literary criticism since the 1970s.

Psychological study of literature --- Books and reading --- Appraisal of books --- Books --- Choice of books --- Evaluation of literature --- Literature --- Reading, Choice of --- Reading and books --- Reading habits --- Reading public --- Reading --- Reading interests --- Reading promotion --- Psychological aspects. --- History --- Appraisal --- Evaluation

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What does reading mean in the twenty-first century? As other disciplines challenge literary criticism's authority to answer this question, English professors are defining new alternatives to close reading and to interpretation more generally. Further Reading brings together thirty essays drawing on approaches as different as formalism, historicism, neuroscience, disability, and computation. Contributors take up the following questions: What do we mean when we talk about 'reading' today? How are reading techniques evolving in the digital era? What is the future of reading? This book foregrounds reading as a topic worthy of investigation in its own right rather than as a sub-section of histories of the book, sociologies of literacy, or theories of literature. As our knowledge of reading changes in step with the media and the scholarly tools used to apprehend it, a more precise understanding of this topic is crucial to the discipline's future. This collection introduces new ways of conceptualizing the term's forms, boundaries, and uses. Its contributors bring varied vocabularies to bear on the contested nature and continued importance of reading, within the academy and beyond.

Books and reading. --- Livres et lecture --- Books and reading --- Appraisal of books --- Books --- Choice of books --- Evaluation of literature --- Literature --- Reading, Choice of --- Reading and books --- Reading habits --- Reading public --- Reading --- Reading interests --- Reading promotion --- Appraisal --- Evaluation

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Voluntary societies and government initiatives stimulated the growth of reading communities in South Africa in the second half of the nineteenth century. A system of Parliamentary grants to establish public libraries in country towns and villages nurtured a lively reading culture. A condition was that the library should be open free-of-charge to the general public. This became one more reading space, and others included book societies, reading societies, literary societies, debating societies, mechanics institutes, and mutual improvement societies. This Element explains how reading communities used these spaces to promote cultural and literary development in a unique ethos of improvement, and to raise political awareness in South Africa's colonial transition to a Union government and racial segregation.

Books and reading --- Appraisal of books --- Books --- Choice of books --- Evaluation of literature --- Literature --- Reading, Choice of --- Reading and books --- Reading habits --- Reading public --- Reading --- Reading interests --- Reading promotion --- History --- Appraisal --- Evaluation

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Books and reading --- Social aspects. --- Appraisal of books --- Books --- Choice of books --- Evaluation of literature --- Literature --- Reading, Choice of --- Reading and books --- Reading habits --- Reading public --- Reading --- Reading interests --- Reading promotion --- Appraisal --- Evaluation