A circulating library (also known as lending libraries and rental libraries) lent books to subscribers, and was first and foremost a business venture. The intention was to profit from lending books to the public for a fee. [1]
Circulating libraries offered an alternative in the 18th and 19th centuries to the large number of readers who could not afford the price of new books but also desired to quench their desire for new material. Many circulating libraries were perceived as the provider of sensational novels to a female clientele but that was not always the case. Many private circulating libraries in Europe were created for scientific and/or literary audiences. In Britain, readers in the middle classes depended on these institutions to provide access to the latest fiction novels; they required a substantial subscription that many lower class readers couldn't afford. [2]
Circulating libraries were important cultural institutions in Britain and America during the 18th and 19th centuries, affording the rising middle class access to a broad range of reading material including poetry, plays, histories, biography, philosophy, travels, and especially fiction.
Circulating libraries were of three major types: specialist libraries; book clubs; and commercial libraries, which developed in major cities and most notably offered a wide collection of novels. Although university and college libraries flourished, as did special libraries for governments, associations, and businesses, these were still not open to the general public. [3]
Circulating libraries rented out bestsellers in large numbers, allowing publishers to increase their earnings and authors to increase their readership. The relationship between publishers and circulating libraries was so good that publishers offered discounts to circulating libraries. [4] Publishers and circulating libraries became decreasingly dependent on each other in the nineteenth century for their mutual profit. Circulating libraries also influenced book publishers to keep producing expensive volume-based books instead of a single-volume format (see Three-volume novel ). However, when bestselling fiction titles went out of fashion quickly, many circulating libraries were left with inventory they could neither sell nor rent out. This is one of the reasons why circulating libraries, such as Charles Edward Mudie, were eventually forced to close their doors in response to cheaper alternatives. [2] [5]
It is complicated to precisely define circulating libraries and specifically what separates them from other types of libraries. In the time period of circulating libraries, there were other libraries, such as subscription libraries, that operated in a similar fashion but were not the same. [1] [6] However, when both types of libraries were commonplace, the terms circulating libraries and subscription libraries "were completely interchangeable." [7] It was logical that they were considered to be the same since both libraries circulated books and charged a subscription fee. The libraries differed in their intent. Circulating libraries’ intent was financial gain, and subscription libraries intended to obtain literary and scholarly works to share with others. [1] [8]
Circulating libraries were popular in the 18th and 19th centuries and were located in large and small communities. Often, they were operated out of stores that sold other items such as newspapers and books. Sometimes they were in stores that sold items completely unrelated to books. They were often important social establishments, where users would go to see and be seen. In resort towns, they were often quite fashionable, with visitors subscribing for the season. [9] The fees were for long periods of time such ranging from several months to a year. Eventually, the fees changed to daily rates to try to entice customers in some libraries. [10]
One difference between circulating libraries and other libraries was that their collection reflected public demand, which led to larger collections of fiction. [1] [10] When circulation of a particular book decreased, it was sold. Another difference was the customers of circulating libraries were often female. These factors contributed to the popularity of circulating libraries. [10] Circulating libraries were the first to serve women and actively seek out their patronage. It was not a coincidence that some of these libraries were located in millinery and stationery stores and midwives' offices. [11] Circulation libraries would also employ single women, widows, and retired women. [12]
The late 18th century was when novels became commonplace. The demand for novels was high but the cost of them made them inaccessible for many. They held wide appeal because they were less complex than more scholarly types of literature. However novels did not have an overwhelmingly popular reception. [13]
Some aspects of novels were realistic, which made them appealing and relatable. The elements of novels that made them sensational and alluring were the parts that deviated from what would usually happen in reality. Society feared that people, mainly women, would not be able to differentiate between the realistic and completely fictional elements. Basically the argument against novels was that it would cause people to have unrealistic expectations of life. [13]
Circulating libraries were highly criticized at the height of their popularity for being providers of novels. [10] [13] The views about novels and their readers, sellers, and writers went beyond simple criticism to being slanderous. [13]
Some circulating libraries were publishers although many did not have widespread distribution for the works they printed. By the end of the 18th century, they had increased the amount of fiction they published. They favored publishing works from women whereas other publishers still favored works by men. [14]
It was common for people to publish their works anonymously. Circulating library publishers were known for publishing anonymous works, and it is believed that many of the ones they published were written by women. Circulating library publishers were not viewed as favorably as other major publishers since they printed works that were considered unsavory by society. People may have wanted their works to be anonymous to avoid the stigma of being associated with a publisher with a dubious reputation. [14] By allowing for women to be published, and for works to be published anonymously, circulating libraries aided with the creation of sub-genres like the gothic novels. [15]
By the beginning of the 20th century the ways people procured books had changed, and circulating libraries were no longer the favored way of obtaining them. [6] The biggest contributor to the contraction of circulating libraries was the reduced price of books, which made them more accessible to the public, who became less reliant on circulating libraries. In an attempt to compensate for the loss of revenue, the subscription fees were lessened to daily rates down from monthly or yearly ones. [10]
Commercial circulating libraries were still common into the 20th century, although public libraries becoming commonplace contributed to their decline. Another contributing factor was the introduction of paperback books, which were less expensive to purchase. [1]
In the UK, the retail chain WHSmith ran a library scheme from 1860, which lasted until 1961, when the library was taken over by that of Boots the Chemist. This, founded in 1898 and at one time to be found in 450 branches, continued until the last 121 disappeared in 1966. [16]
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is codex. In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page.
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has multiple subgenres, including detective fiction, courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. Most crime drama focuses on crime investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre.
Ann Radcliffe was an English novelist and a pioneer of Gothic fiction. Her technique of explaining apparently supernatural elements in her novels has been credited with gaining respectability for Gothic fiction in the 1790s. Radcliffe was the most popular writer of her day and almost universally admired; contemporary critics called her the mighty enchantress and the Shakespeare of romance-writers, and her popularity continued through the 19th century. Interest has revived in the early 21st century, with the publication of three biographies.
A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants.
George Augustus Moore was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family who lived at Moore Hall in Carra, County Mayo. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s. There, he befriended many of the leading French artists and writers of the day.
A romance novel or romantic novel generally refers to a type of genre fiction novel which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Precursors include authors of literary fiction, such as Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Brontë.
Commonplace books are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are similar to scrapbooks filled with items of many kinds: sententiae, notes, proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, prayers, legal formulas, and recipes. Entries are most often organized under subject headings and differ functionally from journals or diaries, which are chronological and introspective." Commonplaces are used by readers, writers, students, and scholars as an aid for remembering useful concepts or facts; sometimes they were required of young women as evidence of their mastery of social roles and as demonstrations of the correctness of their upbringing. They became significant in Early Modern Europe.
A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch.
Mills & Boon is a romance imprint of British publisher Harlequin UK Ltd. It was founded in 1908 by Gerald Rusgrove Mills and Charles Boon as a general publisher. The company moved towards escapist fiction for women in the 1930s. In 1971, the publisher was bought by the Canadian company Harlequin Enterprises, its North American distributor based in Toronto, with whom it had a long informal partnership. The two companies offer a number of imprints that between them account for almost three-quarters of the romance paperbacks published in Britain. Its print books are presently out-numbered and out-sold by the company's e-books, which allowed the publisher to double its output.
Lesbian pulp fiction is a genre of lesbian literature that refers to any mid-20th century paperback novel or pulp magazine with overtly lesbian themes and content. Lesbian pulp fiction was published in the 1950s and 1960s by many of the same paperback publishing houses as other genres of fiction, including westerns, romances, and detective fiction. Because very little other literature was available for and about lesbians at this time, quite often these books were the only reference the public had for modeling what lesbians were. English professor Stephanie Foote commented on the importance of lesbian pulp novels to the lesbian identity prior to the rise of organized feminism: "Pulps have been understood as signs of a secret history of readers, and they have been valued because they have been read. The more they are read, the more they are valued, and the more they are read, the closer the relationship between the very act of circulation and reading and the construction of a lesbian community becomes…. Characters use the reading of novels as a way to understand that they are not alone."
Charles Edward Mudie , English publisher and founder of Mudie's Lending Library and Mudie's Subscription Library, was the son of a second-hand bookseller and newsagent. Mudie's efficient distribution system and vast supply of texts revolutionized the circulating library movement, while his "select" library influenced Victorian middle-class values and the structure of the three-volume novel. He was also the first publisher of James Russell Lowell's poems in England, and of Emerson's Man Thinking.
Minerva Press was a publishing house, notable for creating a lucrative market in sentimental and Gothic fiction, active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was established by William Lane at No 33 Leadenhall Street, London, when he moved his circulating library there in about 1790.
The three-volume novel was a standard form of publishing for British fiction during the nineteenth century. It was a significant stage in the development of the modern novel as a form of popular literature in Western culture.
A subscription library is a library that is financed by private funds either from membership fees or endowments. Unlike a public library, access is often restricted to members, but access rights can also be given to non-members, such as students.
Lesbian literature is a subgenre of literature addressing lesbian themes. It includes poetry, plays, fiction addressing lesbian characters, and non-fiction about lesbian-interest topics.
In literature, a serial is a printing or publishing format by which a single larger work, often a work of narrative fiction, is published in smaller, sequential instalments. The instalments are also known as numbers, parts, fascicules or fascicles, and may be released either as separate publications or within sequential issues of a periodical publication, such as a magazine or newspaper.
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the Italian: novella for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the Latin: novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus, diminutive of novus, meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels.
The history of libraries began with the first efforts to organize collections of documents. Topics of interest include accessibility of the collection, acquisition of materials, arrangement and finding tools, the book trade, the influence of the physical properties of the different writing materials, language distribution, role in education, rates of literacy, budgets, staffing, libraries for targeted audiences, architectural merit, patterns of usage, and the role of libraries in a nation's cultural heritage, and the role of government, church or private sponsorship. Computerization and digitization arose from the 1960s, and changed many aspects of libraries.
A miscellany is a collection of various pieces of writing by different authors. Meaning a mixture, medley, or assortment, a miscellany can include pieces on many subjects and in a variety of different forms. In contrast to anthologies, whose aim is to give a selective and canonical view of literature, miscellanies were produced for the entertainment of a contemporary audience and so instead emphasise collectiveness and popularity. Laura Mandell and Rita Raley state:
This last distinction is quite often visible in the basic categorical differences between anthologies on the one hand, and all other types of collections on the other, for it is in the one that we read poems of excellence, the "best of English poetry," and it is in the other that we read poems of interest. Out of the differences between a principle of selection and a principle of collection, then, comes a difference in aesthetic value, which is precisely what is at issue in the debates over the "proper" material for inclusion into the canon.
The selling of books dates back to ancient times. The founding of libraries in c.300 BC stimulated the energies of the Athenian booksellers. In Rome, toward the end of the republic, it became the fashion to have a library, and Roman booksellers carried on a flourishing trade.