Reading Gladstone

by Windscheffel, Ruth Clayton

• ISBN13: 9780230007659
• ISBN10: 0230007651
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-10-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This interdisciplinary study explores how book culture functioned in the life and milieu of one of the nineteenth century's most complex figures. Spanning the statesman's long life, it presents key case studies illuminating the constant and fundamental interplay between reading, life and politics which characterised Gladstone's world. Grounded in historical studies and yet methodologically informed, this study offers a radically different understanding of Gladstone, challenging many long-established preconceptions and contributing an important new history of reading to nineteenth-century studies.

Author Biography

RUTH CLAYTON WINDSCHEFFEL is Julia Mann Junior Research Fellow in History, St Hilda's College, Oxford. Her principal research interests lie in the fields of nineteenth and twentieth-century British political and cultural history. She is a Fellow of St Deiniol’s Library, Hawarden, and a member of the Royal Historical Society.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. viii
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
List of Abbreviations	p. xvi
Introduction	p. 1
Reading the Reader
Sacred Dramas: The History of a Collection, 1815-96	p. 23
Rhythms of Reading	p. 44
Making the Reader
The Gentleman's Inheritance, 1809-36	p. 81
A Place of Deceptive Tranquillity: Gladstone's Temple of Peace	p. 101
St Deiniol's Library
Humanity: Libraries, Literature, and Liberalism	p. 131
Divinity: Gladstone, Oxford, and Lux Mundi	p. 159
Transforming the Reader
Political Lotus-Eater to Grand Old Bookman: Re-presenting Gladstone the Reader	p. 193
Conclusion	p. 234
Notes	p. 240
Bibliography	p. 296
Index	p. 319
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.