Yesterday my 18th Century Couples Comedy class concluded our discussion of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones. We spent a lot of time talking about how it was popular with youthful readers in the 18th century, an idea I owe to J. Paul Hunter, my dissertation director at Emory University. Paul explores the issue in Before Novels: […]
Tag Archives: Child rearing
Mocking Adult Anxieties about Novels
“Before,” by William Hogarth (1736) What can happen to your daughters if they read novels? According to William Hogarth, something like the above. Check out the lower left hand corner where a side table is falling over. The drawer has been left casually but deliberately open so that one can see the book that is […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Before", adolescence, Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Novel reading, Rambler #4, Richard Sheridan, Samuel Johnson, School for Scandal, William Hogarth Comments closed
