Literacy and Popular Culture

In 1750, half the population were unable to sign their names; by 1914 England, together with handful of advanced Western countries, had for the first time in history achieved a nominally literate society. This book seeks to understand how and why literacy spread into every interstice of English society, and what impact it had on the lives and minds of the common people.

'David Vincent's history of the teaching of reading and writing, and its cultural implications, shows how, once you take the winning of literacy as a serious issue, it opens up new perspectives on a whole series of major themes. His topics range from family relationships and social mobility, through politics and election broadsides, to the cultural influences of literacy on the working-class generation before that of Richard Hoggart.' Times Literary Supplement 'This is an ambitious, scholarly and fascinating book of interest not only to specialists and historians but also to a wider public.' The Times Higher Education Supplement