• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 6 8- 8893 WASHINGTON, William David, 1917- THE PENNY MAGAZINE: A STUDY OF THE GENESIS AND UTILITARIAN APPLICATION OF THE POPULAR MISCELLANY. The Ohio State University, Ph,D., 1967 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THE PENNY MAGAZINE: A STUDY OF THE GENESIS AND UTILITARIAN APPLICATION OF THE POPULAR MISCELLANY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University B y William D.‘ Washington, B.A., M.A. ****** The Ohio State University 1967 Approved by (ZiLa.^'b' » Adviser Department of English Foreword The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1832-1845) represents a nineteenth-century union of two closely related streams of popular literature in England, namely, literature created to help the inferior ranks of society along the road to self-betterment and that which carried with it the additional function of indoctrina­ ting them with certain economic, political, and religious views of their betters. This study begins with the development of such reading matter during the Renaissance and culminates in an intensive examination of the manner in which the philosophy responsible for its existence was manifested in the Penny Magazine, a miscellany of moral, scientific and general information, published under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. The group, organized in 1826 and guided for two decades by Henry Brougham, had among its members some of the most prominent philanthropists, scholars, and politicians of the day, all motivated by the belief that dissemination of information through reading would improve the thinking and manners of the masses. ii Because of the Society's noisy role in the nineteenth- century march of mind, the Penny Magazine entered the field of popular literature with more fanfare than did its leading competitors, Chambers1s Edinburgh Journal and the Saturday Magazine, the latter sponsored by the Church-controlled Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. All three mis­ cellanies, however, shared the task of establishing the kind of publication that brought cheap, decent periodicals within the purchasing range of the lower classes. In general, I have treated the group of philosophical radicals organized under the name of the Useful Knowledge Society as authors of the Penny Magazine, although little of its content derived from their pens. The justification is manifold. First, the organization strove constantly to pre­ sent a united front; consequently it swallowed up individual authorship into the anonymity of the Society. Moreover, the Penny Magazine was founded to propagate the collective philosophy of the group and to manipulate the public along the lines the Society dictated. The editors of the Penny Magazine were completely in agreement with the thinking of their employer, and by careful selection and diligent rewriting, they saw to it that the content of the Society's miscellany expressed the viewpoint of the organization. As a final authority, a Committee sat in judgment of all that was printed under the supervision of the Society. Thus it may be properly concluded that the iii voice of the Penny Magazine was the voice of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. The Penny Magazine grew out of the Society's concern over a wave of democratic agitation stirred up among the working classes by the Reform Bill which was introduced in Parliament by Lord Russell in 1831 and in February, 1832, was passing through Committee in the House of Commons. But the Useful Knowledge Society took aim at its audience somewhat in the same manner a Kentucky mountaineer aims upwind at a squirrel, allowing for windage to make sure his shot travels its intended course. Although it was convinced that egali­ tarian notions stemmed primarily from the imperfect education of the lower classes, the Society directed the Penny Magazine at the more literate middling classes, in the belief that the best way to improve the commonality was to elevate the intel­ lectual and moral level of the class immediately above them, for each social class is eager to mimic the superior class to which it is most closely allied. The experience of earlier philanthropic groups had proved the difficulty of using the printed word to improve directly the manners, morals, and social attitudes of a highly illiterate working class. The Useful Knowledge Society's minutes, along with other pertinent documents, were preserved at the Library of the University of London, but they were damaged during World War II and unavailable for photographic reproduction when this study was started. A thesis written by Monica Grobel at the iv University of London in 1933 is based largely on these papers, but Miss Grobel is said to be contemplating publication of her work and will not permit microfilming. I was fortunate, however, in obtaining permission to use a 1943 Oxford thesis, "A History of the Society for Diffusion of Useful Knowledge" by Thomas L. Jarman, whose study is based largely on Miss Grobel1s work. In addition, I found helpful a London Univer­ sity thesis, "A Life of Charles Knight" (1943), by A. C. Cherry, who also made extensive use of Miss Grobel1s study. For the most part, however, I have relied on the pub­ lished proceedings of the Useful Knowledge Society and infor­ mation about the group in publications that were contemporary with it. In addition, the memoirs of several men associated with the organization provided an important source of information. The question remains: is the Penny Magazine significant enough to warrant serious study? I can only answer that I believe it is. Any publication is significant that under the sponsorship of such an eminent assemblage managed to reach a weekly circulation of some 80,000 copies at a time when mass-produced reading matter was in its infancy. The content of the Penny Magazine represents what many of the leading thinkers of the day considered proper reading for a large segment of English society. Therefore the Penny Maga­ zine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge represents an important stage in the history of popular reading. v VITA November 3, 1922 Born - Indianapolis, Indiana 1949 .......... B. A. , Howard University, Washington, D.C 1951 .......... M.A., Howard University, Washington, D.C 1954-1959 .... Instructor, Southern University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 1959-1964 .... Assistant Instructor, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1964-1967 .... Instructor, Howard University, Washington, D. C. FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: English TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I 1 CHAPTER II 35 CHAPTER III 81 CHAPTER IV 112 CHAPTER V 168 CHAPTER VI 240 BIBLIOGRAPHY 300 vii Chapter I The English popular literature that blossomed in the late 1790’s had its beginnings in the fifteenth century with the introduction of the printing press into England from the Continent, mahing possible the rapid reproduction of books to meet the growing Renaissance demand for know­ ledge. The availability of knowledge written in the ver­ nacular gave every man who could read his native tongue the opportunity to become his own teacher and thereby satisfy his curiosity in a variety of fields without the help of a formal education. Since knowledge was a means of raising its possessor above the shoulders of the crowds, ambitious men who for one reason or another lacked the advantages of a full education constantly worked to lessen the gap between themselves and those who did. During the Renaissance, the main concern for self-education was centered within the ranks of a socially ambitious merchant class, whose members observed that "learning bringeth preferment, yea even to 1 them which are but basely borne." It was natural, then, Quoted from A memorial of the famous Monuments and Charitable almes deedes of the right worshipful Maister William Lambe Esguire (1580) in Louis B. Wright, "The Renaissance Middle class Concern over Learning," Philological Quarterly, IX (1930), 264. See also Hardin Craig, "A Con­ tribution to the Theory of the English Renaissance," Philo­ logical Quarterly, VII (1928), 321-33. 1 2 for the tradesman, who frequently was somewhat deficient in formal schooling to worry about increasing not only his material stock, but also his store of occupational and to a lesser extent, cultural knowledge. In England before the Renaissance, the scarcity of books and the predominance of Latin as a written language made the task of self-education a formidable one, but the printing press and the spread of literacy ushered in a new era for the self-made man. Evidence of these two forces at work appears in various kinds of reading matter that issued from the early presses as a result of popular demand. In 1480, for example, Caxton printed Dialogues in French and English, a book con­ sisting of everyday conversational French with the English translation in a parallel column. This little volume sup­ plied the need for a self-teaching manual which would enable British merchants to learn enough French to carry on business transactions across the channel. The popularity of Caxton's Dialogues was attested to by the subsequent publication of improved versions by Wynkyn de Worde and Richard Pynson, two of Caxton*s disciples. These later works were in the form of French-English dialogues dealing with trade and sundry circumstances apropos to buying and selling. Both men added to their treatises an essay for children on English and French manners and a collection of model business letters 2 written in both languages, thereby creating the earliest 2 Henry S. Bennett, English Books and Readers, 1475 to 1557 (Cambridge, 1952), pp. 93-94. English forerunners of -the letter writer that became popular during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Load more

  315

Copy Link