More about stories as painkillers

One of the many articles inspired by Rudyard Kipling and his words quotes something he said that made a big impression when I first came across it: 

“I am, by calling, a dealer in words; and words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind…”

Words can certainly be intoxicating and inspiring; they can also be a big and positive distraction for and have a very good effect on people who are suffering. 

The article goes on to say this:

“I remember reading that Dennis Wheatley got large numbers of letters from people in hospital who said that his books helped them to forget their pain.”

An explanation of how this works comes from A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L'Engle, another article-inspiring writer:

“She smiled. “When we are listening to stories, then it is the story center of the brain which is functioning, and the pain center is less active. I go into the children’s wards of hospitals, where there are children in great pain. When I am telling them stories they laugh and they cry and in truth their pain is less. Mine, too.“”

This makes sense. Reading stories also works for other kinds of pain. The article about the reader's dilemma mentions reading for comfort in times of trouble and desolation. Children who are suffering because of neglect and ill treatment may find that reading fiction provides solace and a means of escape.

A last look through Conan Doyle's Magic Door

The final article in the series inspired by Through the Magic Door, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's little volume of 12 essays about books, writers and reading, has been outstanding for some time now. 

The last in a string of book-inspired posts is often the most difficult to produce; it isn't easy to let a good book go! Then there is the uncomfortable feeling that some key commentary-inspiring material might have been overlooked, which means retaining the book on standby for just one more trawl-through when time permits.

I now feel that enough is enough; at long last the time has come to call it a day. I have made a final journey through the Magic Door for the purpose of producing just one more article, and I found a little more interesting material to highlight.

Tales of some tubs
As previously mentioned, Conan Doyle describes the tempting tub of bargain books that stood outside the door of a bookshop that he used to pass on the way to buy his lunch;  each time he went to get something to eat, he had to decide between spending his budgeted threepence on food or doing without and buying a book for the same amount of money instead. 

He twice mentions Jonathan Swift's satirical work A Tale of a Tub; this was one of the cheap treasures that he found when digging in the tub!

This reminds me of a similar scene in Dion Fortune's Goat-Foot God. A twopenny bargain bin that stands outside a bookshop tempts a passer-by into looking for gold among the gravel. He finds a good book that 'by chance' was put in the bin by mistake. When he goes inside to pay, a whole new life opens up to him.

Macaulay's Essays
Conan Doyle says that Macaulay's Essays opened up a new world to him. He describes how much this book meant to him:

“If I had to choose the one book out of all that line from which I have had most pleasure and most profit, I should point to yonder stained copy of Macaulay's "Essays." It seems entwined into my whole life as I look backwards. It was my comrade in my student days, it has been with me on the sweltering Gold Coast, and it formed part of my humble kit when I went a-whaling in the Arctic. Honest Scotch harpooners have addled their brains over it, and you may still see the grease stains where the second engineer grappled with Frederick the Great. Tattered and dirty and worn, no gilt-edged morocco-bound volume could ever take its place for me.“

This reminds me of Alan Quatermain and his copy of the Ingoldsby Legends that accompanied him everywhere.

A few words about disowning unworthy people in favour of books

This post was inspired by a striking passage in Jonathan Stroud's fantasy novel The Amulet of Samarkand, the first in the series that features magic, alternative history and the amusing djinni or demon Bartimaeus.

Here, the young apprentice magician Nathaniel mentally disowns his master, opts out of his position and transfers his allegiance elsewhere:

“...Nathaniel did not regard Arthur Underwood as his true master any longer. His masters were the magicians of old, who spoke to him through their books, allowing him to learn at his own pace and offering ever-multiplying marvels for his mind. They did not patronize or betray him. 

Arthur Underwood had forfeited his right to Nathaniel's obedience and respect the moment he failed to shield him from Simon Lovelace's jibes and physical assaults. This, Nathaniel knew, simply was not done. Every apprentice was taught that their master was effectively their parent. He or she protected them until they were old enough to stand up for themselves. Arthur Underwood had failed to do this.”

This is a very good description of what can happen internally when someone permanently loses respect for and faith in the authority figure – or parent – they are dependent on. They may indeed mentally reject and disown the person who has let them down so badly.

A disillusioned victim of betrayal who has no other options in the real world may try to fill some gaps by reading. If they can't get what they need, want and expect from the people around them, they will turn away from them and get it from the world of books instead.

Books versus real life in Conan Doyle's Magic Door

This is another article in the series about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's little volume of essays on books, reading and associated topics Through the Magic Door. 

This post was inspired by the following passage, which appears just after the invitation to enter the magic world of books:

“No matter what mood a man may be in, when once he has passed through the magic door he can summon the world’s greatest to sympathize with him in it. If he be thoughtful, here are the kings of thought. If he be dreamy, here are the masters of fancy. Or is it amusement that he lacks? He can signal to any one of the world’s great story-tellers, and out comes the dead man and holds him enthralled by the hour.

The dead are such good company that one may come to think too little of the living. It is a real and a pressing danger with many of us, that we should never find our own thoughts and our own souls, but be ever obsessed by the dead. Yet second-hand romance and second-hand emotion are surely better than the dull, soul-killing monotony which life brings to most of the human race. But best of all when the dead man’s wisdom and the dead man’s example give us guidance and strength and in the living of our own strenuous days.“

Conan Doyle makes some good points here; they are best dealt with individually.

Getting whatever you want whenever you want it
The first few lines above provide a good explanation of why so many people like to read. A library is like a menu for the mind; they can get on demand whatever 'food' they feel in the mood for. Too much choice can be a problem though! 

I have often asked myself what type of reading material I am in the mood for. Do I feel like reading something light and amusing? Do I want to be inspired, informed or entertained? Perhaps some familiar comfort food would be best – or maybe I should try something new for a change. Sometimes I read to lift my mood: I may select an uplifting book to counter-balance the effects of reading a very depressing one. 

Books are better than life
Conan Doyle is right when he says that dead people can be better company than the living.

What we get from books may indeed seem more appealing and rewarding than what we are getting from real life. This applies to both the people in our lives and the life that we are leading.

A further scene of interest from a Dion Fortune occult novel

A key scene in Dion Fortune's occult novel Moon Magic inspired an article about communicating via metaphysical means. 

In this scene, Priestess of Isis Lilith Le Fay describes how she attracted the right person to her by sending out a call on the right wavelength.

In another significant passage in this novel. Lilith Le Fay describes how she looked for clues to the pattern and purpose of her occult work:

“...it suddenly occurred to me that there was a kind of pattern running through my slowly formulating work which I had not observed before. It is well known to those who deal with the hidden side of things that such patterns exist, they are, in fact, caused by the invisible forces with which we work, and when these have been got in hand and are being directed by a planning will, the pattern appears. I knew, therefore, that if I could discern the plan of the pattern, all would be clear. There is a central thread that runs through all these things; find that, and you have the clue. 

I know how to look for this thread — one seeks that which recurs and keeps on recurring. In the present instance there was one recurring factor, and one only...”

She is talking about unseen influences, the invisible forces that are at work in our lives! 

Dion Fortune wrote elsewhere about the part that the Unseen sometimes plays in certain people's  lives; here, she may be referring to a hidden hand that operates behind the scenes.

I find these words very interesting. They have a much wider application. Many people would benefit from performing a similar exercise, one in which they look back and try to identify and learn from important recurring factors in their lives.

Plans, patterns, threads and clues
This article is not the place to cover the exercise in depth, but in summary there are three steps to take: the first step involves looking for recurring factors, both good and bad, in key aspects of someone's life; the next step entails treating these factors as clues to a master plan and indications of what should or should not be done; finally, the practitioner might consider who or what might have designed and implemented the patterns and and laid the clues.

The reader's dilemma: so many books, so little time

The article about L. M. Montgomery's compulsion to read and write contains this quotation from one of her journals:

“I doubt if I shall ever have time to read the book again -- there are too many new ones coming out all the time which I want to read. Yet an old book has something for me which no new book can ever have -- for at every reading the memories and atmosphere of other readings come back and I am reading old years as well as an old book.”

For an avid reader, a 'book drunkard' as  L. M. Montgomery called herself, the dilemma of there not being enough hours in the day to do all the reading they would like to is a very real and major one. 

The 'so many books, so little time' dilemma does indeed often involve making a decision to select a familiar old friend rather than a fresh new book to read or vice versa; in other words, all reading is at the expense of other reading. 

I commented on L. M. Montgomery's thoughts about reading and the feelings of nostalgia that old books can invoke at the time. I have since come across another quotation about the advantages of old over new books, and this has inspired a few more words on the subject.

Comfort food for the mind
Elizabeth Goudge states that our favourite books can provide great comfort when we are going through difficult times in our lives.

Conan Doyle's Magic Door and the 'eat or buy books' dilemma

I find much of the material in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's little book of essays Through the Magic Door either very interesting or rather boring. 

When it comes to the material of interest, Conan Doyle's story of his close escape from being accused of plagiarism is fascinating not only in its own right but also because something similar happened to Rudyard Kipling. 

It is much the same where another of Conan Doyle's anecdotes is concerned: his account of having to choose between eating and buying books reminds me of other people who had this or a similar dilemma. 

His unexpected views on public libraries versus the ownership of books also inspire some commentary.

Conan Doyle's 'eat or read' dilemma
In Through the Magic Door, Conan Doyle introduces the books in his library to an imaginary visitor. One set is of particular interest:

“You see the line of old, brown volumes at the bottom? Every one of those represents a lunch. They were bought in my student days, when times were not too affluent. Threepence was my modest allowance for my midday sandwich and glass of beer; but, as luck would have it, my way to the classes led past the most fascinating bookshop in the world. Outside the door of it stood a large tub filled with an ever-changing litter of tattered books, with a card above which announced that any volume therein could be purchased for the identical sum which I carried in my pocket.

As I approached it a combat ever raged betwixt the hunger of a youthful body and that of an inquiring and omnivorous mind. Five times out of six the animal won. But when the mental prevailed, then there was an entrancing five minutes' digging among out-of-date almanacs, volumes of Scotch theology, and tables of logarithms, until one found something which made it all worth while.”

Conan Doyle goes on to describe some of his treasured volumes, the literary gold that he prospected for in the bookseller's old threepenny tub and went without lunch to buy.

Incidentally, Conan Doyle's threepenny sandwich and glass of beer made a better lunch than J. B. Priestley's twopenny bag of stale buns!

Conan Doyle's Magic Door: great minds think alike!

This article might never have existed if I hadn't decided at the last minute to 'pull' the article about books, reading and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in favour of one about Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood & Co. books, which was next in the queue and all ready to go.

The Conan Doyle article was originally scheduled to be published on April 7th, but I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable because two of the quotations in it had no source. They are widely attributed to Conan Doyle, but without any indication of where they originally came from.

I had a strong feeling that I should dig deeper to find the origin of these quotations: it just didn't seem right to release the article before I had done all that I could to find the sources.

I guessed that they might have come from Conan Doyle's letters, but eventually found them in Through the Magic Door (1907), a collection of essays about books, writers and reading. 

I thought that this title was a good coincidence: the Magic Door leads to a world of books, and I had said in the Conan Doyle books and reading article that my first books had magical titles and opened a door to new worlds.

I took a very quick look at Through the Magic Door; I saw immediately that it contained enough coincidences, references to familiar topics and other relevant material to inspire at least one article. Some of the content would have been suitable for the books and reading article, but I decided to publish this in its original form after just adding the quotations' source and to forget the Magic Door until I had finished some work in progress.

Ever since I read that dropping existing activities when something new and exciting comes along is a sign of emotional immaturity, I have been trying not to do this!

I wanted to give Through the Magic Door my undivided attention, which meant first getting some outstanding work out of the way. I returned to the book after completing a few half-finished articles; this post is the result of giving it a much closer look.

Something about Through the Magic Door
The Magic Door is a portal to another world, one that is entered by reading. Conan Doyle gives a tour of his library to an imaginary visitor; he introduces his favourite books and authors and gives his views on many of them. Some of his comments and references stand out because they are similar to material in various articles on here, including the Conan Doyle books and reading one.  

This is quite a coincidence considering that not only had I not read Through the Magic Door until after I had posted the material that we have in common, I had never even heard of it!

Something about being interrupted while reading

While looking for more information about Frances Hodgson Burnett, I came across a previously overlooked short paragraph in her classic children's novel A Little Princess that resonates very strongly:

“Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett was writing about her young heroine Sara Crewe here, but she was surely speaking for herself – and for many other avid readers, including me, who hate being interrupted while engrossed in a book. Some people do indeed react with annoyance when abruptly dragged out of a book they were immersed in: being brought back to reality in this way is often very jarring and disorienting. 

This extract has inspired some thoughts on the subject of being interrupted while reading. This article includes extracts from another classic children's book and has something to say about the motives of the interrupters.

Reading 'is not an occupation'
Some people devalue reading; it is not seen a worthwhile activity. They equate reading books with idling, with doing nothing useful, so they interrupt because they want to see the reader doing something else.

This scene from Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes is a good example of this attitude:

“...Petrova was sitting on the table in the window reading a book...

The bell rang again.

“Ought to be answered.’’ Cook spoke firmly, partly because her word was law in the kitchen, and partly because whoever answered it, it would not be her. She looked round, but everybody seemed busy; then her eye fell on Petrova. Reading was not an occupation. It came in her view under the heading of “Satan finds....”

“Petrova dear,” she said, “we’re all busy; you run up and see who it is.””

Books, reading, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

There are many references to books and reading on here, not to mention a whole string of articles about public libraries. 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has also appeared in many articles. I want to highlight a few quotations of his about books and reading that I came across recently.

The first quotation, which is from Conan Doyle's Through the Magic Door, speaks for itself; it says it all:

“...that love of books...is among the choicest gifts of the gods.”

Many people who are great readers would agree with this.

Sherlock Holmes says this about himself in The Adventure of the Lion's Mane:

“I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.” 

I too am an avid reader who sometimes remembers small details, even from books that I may not have read for decades. Many of the 'trifles' I recalled from the distant past have appeared in or even inspired various articles.

Another quotation from Conan Doyle's Through the Magic Door comes very close to home:

“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.”

While I will never forget the debt that I owe to public libraries, it really was great to have a small collection of my own books from an early age. 

Something about Rachel Ferguson and The Brontës Went to Woolworths

I first heard about Rachel Ferguson's novel with the intriguing title some years ago, but only recently got around to reading it.

The title is a little misleading: the Brontës appear only briefly in the book and then only in ghost form. 

I found The Brontës Went to Woolworths to be of interest more for the connections and coincidences than for the characters and story.   

The book, which was first published in 1931 and is set in the London of the time, features a bohemian, eccentric family consisting of a widowed woman and her three daughters. They all participate in an ongoing game in which they make up stories about and have imaginary relationships and conversations with real people they have never met. 

This game and the effect that it has on their lives will be covered in a future article; first comes some miscellaneous material of interest.

The Celtic connection 
The last name of the family in The Brontës Went to Woolworths is Carne. The three daughters are Deirdre, Katrine and Sheil.

All of these names have Celtic connections.

Carne is a name of Gaelic origin; it means a pile of stones or a cairn.

Deirdre is an Irish name; Katrine and Sheil are Scottish place names. The girls' father was born on the Isle of Skye.

The Celtic heritage might explain why the girls can see ghosts and their father could see nature spirits.

Ferguson is also a name of Gaelic origin, and ghosts appear in some of Rachel Ferguson's other books.

Brontë connections and the Carne coincidence 
Like many other writers featured on here, May Sinclair for example, Rachel Ferguson was very interested in the Brontës and produced works about and/or inspired by them. She probably got the idea of siblings who share an imaginary world from Brontë biographies. 

Isaac Asimov, public libraries, and National Science Fiction Day

This article for January 2nd is the last in a string of lighter posts for the holiday season. It will soon be time to get back to the depressing biographies and other heavy topics!

January 2nd is the official birthday of the great - if not the greatest - science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who was featured in an article that marked the 25th anniversary of his death. There is also an article about a never forgiven or forgotten brushing-off experience that he had in common with Noel Streatfeild.

Isaac Asimov and public libraries 
Just like many other writers, Terry Pratchett for example, Isaac Asimov was a great user of public libraries as a boy. He learned far more from library books than he did at school, as did I and many other self-educators.

His autobiography In Memory Yet Green contains some details of his early dealings with public libraries, which he first joined at the age of six. Just as I did, he managed to wangle cards from two different libraries so got twice the normal ration of books; just I did, Asimov was soon able to get access to the adult section.

Isaac Asimov read voraciously to satisfy his craving for knowledge, but he was not indiscriminate. I could have written this myself:

“I wanted excitement and action in my stories rather than introspection, soul-searching, and unpleasant people. So if I did reach for fiction in the library it was likely to be a historical novel by Rafael Sabatini...(Usually, when I discovered one book by a prolific author I found I liked I would methodically go through all the others by him I could find.)“

Isaac Asimov remembers public libraries 
Even though he moved on to academic and other professional libraries and eventually established a reference library of his own at home, Isaac Asimov never forgot the huge debt that he owed to public libraries.

The great and positive influence of Everyman's Library

While working on articles about Stella Gibbons's romance My American and the life of the novelist May Sinclair recently, I came across some references to Everyman's Library. 

The first was in J. B. Priestley's introduction to his novel Angel Pavement, which I suggested was the inspiration for My American; the second was in some online information about May Sinclair: she wrote introductions for the Everyman editions of the Brontë sisters' works.

J. B. Priestley: from Everyman reader to Everyman writer
J. B. Priestley is yet another voracious reader who later became a writer. This is an extract from his introduction to the Everyman's Library edition of his novel Angel Pavement:

“It was when I was in my middle teens that I began buying books...I had very little money indeed, and the problem was, how to buy books out of it? I managed this chiefly by economising on my lunches. In a shop in the covered market you could buy a bag of stale buns for tuppence...Out of what I saved, I bought books, and most of these books belonged to the old shilling Everyman series. I have some of them, chiefly the green volumes of the poets, to this day. 

No bits of silver ever bought more enduring enchantment. I wish it were possible to go back to that youth from the office, as he stands looking at the Everyman volumes in Mr. Power's bookstall in the Bradford market, to whisper to him that the day will come when he will write a novel that will find its way into Everyman’s Library...”

One shilling was the official price, so one brand-new volume cost the equivalent of six bags of stale buns!  

Cults and the restricted reading scenario

 A distressing article that I came across recently reminded me of yet another feature that is often found in cults of all kinds. 

This is the discouragement or even prohibition of the reading of unauthorised material. In some extreme cases, members are allowed to read only a few 'bibles' or the writings of the founder. 

By imposing such rules and practices, cult leaders make themselves into Sole Suppliers of information.

Censorship of a few controversial works is one thing; not permitting members to read anything much apart from the organisation's propaganda and other material that the cult is based on, generates, approves of, endorses and promotes is something else. It is criminal when any information Not Invented Here is banned because it is considered to be useless, irrelevant, distracting, dangerous or corrupting. 

Discouraged from reading literature

First, some past coverage. This is from one of my cult-related posts on  the old CC Forum:

This extract from an old blog by an ex-member is very upsetting:

“When I was a young girl, I was very interested in literature and poetry and I loved reading everything by many different authors, which, over time, gave me a lot in terms of maturation and culture. I wanted to talk a lot about this and I remember when, at one of my first meetings with pre-GEN (when I did not know to be a pre-GEN), I told that I read one of these books. I think it was a text by Erich Fromm. 

The girl who was the "white" smiled, almost casually, then dropped the subject and immediately turned to another girl. Over time, I realized that this was the way they were taking control of our interests. They encouraged us to read books by Chiara and the other members of the movement, while they subtly discouraged all the others.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920023204/http://blogfocolare.blogspot.com/

This has been translated from Italian, but the meaning is very clear. This is evil, just like their insistence that an enquiring mind is a handicap. 

Luckily the author got out at the age of 24, so there was plenty of time for her to make a life for herself in the real world and catch up with her reading.

Changing or dropping the subject and ignoring what was said are very familiar techniques. 

Some amusing criticisms of public libraries

This is the sixth article in the series about public libraries, with more still to come.

As previously mentioned, the value or otherwise of public libraries to the community was discussed in detail on the old Conservative Conserpiracy Forum. Four members including me were strongly in favour of them while three took a negative view. 

While I couldn’t agree from my own experience with some of the criticisms, at least one of the antis lived in a small village so what they said may be true in the case of public libraries outside the big cities.

While some of the points made by the critics may have been valid, others seemed feeble, off the mark or even a little bizarre. 

I have salvaged some of the old material for reproducing on here. 

Uncomfortable chairs and spying

One CC member said this:

“I pretty much stopped using the library when they changed all the chairs to uncomfortable plastic jobs, because lots kept on breaking, and staining.”

Who says you have to read your library books in house! 

This is a good point where reference libraries and people who go in to use the Internet are concerned though.

Then there was this gem:

“You're being spied upon in the library, too - those places are covered in CCTV cameras, and every book you take out is kept on your record in the library's database, which can be accessed at will by the local government. Unfortunately, Big Brother surveillance is a feature of 21st century life, whether you're online or offline.”

I would be happy for anyone to see a list of the books I have borrowed, and anyway why would anyone be interested in me as an individual? Monitoring borrowings highlights patterns; it enables libraries to obtain statistics on which books are being taken out and by which demographics. Such information may help to decide which books are bought and which sold off. Maybe they discard certain books when they have not been borrowed for many years.

Passing it on: Diana Wynne Jones and the fantasy ban

An article or two about the very big, complex and excruciatingly painful subject of why people who have suffered at the hands of their parents often go on to make their own children suffer in exactly the same way has been on my mental to-do list for many years now.

There is also something to say about people who make a conscious decision not to pass on to their children the ill-treatment they experienced. They may have been receivers but they did not become transmitters.

The time has come to look at a few examples and try to think of a few explanations. The examples mainly involve writers who have been featured or mentioned on here.

It was something I read recently in Diana Wynne Jones’s account of her early life that made me decide to finally get some ideas down on paper at long last Her story provides a very good example to start with: it tells of someone who passed it on to someone who didn’t. 

Diana Wynne Jones and two generations of censorship
In her book Reflections: On the Magic of Writing, Diana Wynne Jones tells us how she was starved for reading material throughout her childhood.

Her mother, who was an appalling person, added insult to injury by censoring the Piper at the Gates of Dawn chapter in The Wind in the Willows because it was ‘too fanciful’.

Public libraries present

For much of my life, I took the existence of public libraries for granted: they were just there. I can now look at them more objectively and put my experiences into various contexts.

I now know something about the background and history of public libraries and about other people’s views on and experiences of them.

There was a long discussion about free public libraries on the old Conservative Conserpiracy Forum. Some posters approved of them, others did not. I made several contributions in their favour and challenged some of the points made by the antis.

In addition to my personal memories, those old posts and some information I compiled at the time are the main source of material for the public library articles.

This one will bring my personal experience up to date. 

Leaving the public library behind
After leaving school, I continued to be a great user of local public libraries for some years. Then came a time when I allowed my membership to lapse and even forgot that public libraries existed! Buying books instead of borrowing them became the norm for me.

There were several reasons for my defection:

I had moved to an area where the local library was not at all impressive; it was small and there was a very poor showing on the shelves, with little to make browsing worthwhile.

I became interested in New Age and other types of metaphysical books that my library didn’t stock.

I could afford to buy whatever books I wanted, fiction and non-fiction, new or second-hand as available, and I was spoilt for choice as there were many bookshops of various kinds within easy reach including specialist, second-hand and discount. There were charity shops everywhere and they were a good source of cheap books. Some street market stalls sold books too. Browsing in all these places was enjoyable and very productive.

Stella Gibbons and some libraries

Terry Pratchett is not the only writer of interest who both feasted on library books and created books for other library users to read.

Stella Gibbons, whose life and books have been featured on here, is another writer who both took out and put in. My first encounter with her work was via books that came from the public library. 

Internal evidence from her books suggests to me that Stella Gibbons considered libraries to be an important part of life and that she was very familiar with the various types, not to mention the differing social classes and educational and intellectual levels of the members.

She found much good reading material on the family bookshelves when young, but probably joined a public library too.

As an adult she was a user of her local public library for many years. She may also have subscribed to a circulating library as they were still going strong in the first half of the 20th century despite the competition from the free public libraries and she features two of them in one of her books.

Public libraries past

This is the time of year when people take stock and look both backwards and forwards. This makes it an appropriate occasion to publish articles about the past history of and future prospects for public libraries.

After realising retrospectively how fortunate I was to have had so much good-quality free reading material, I went on to think about the people of the past and wonder what they had in the way of public libraries. 

There is a lot of information about the libraries of the past available online. I now know that the public libraries I used were preceded first by libraries that charged their members then later by free libraries that were established by Victorian social reformers primarily for the improvement of the working classes. 

Predecessors of public libraries
As books were an expensive luxury, for many centuries only people at the higher levels of society had their own private libraries. 

Ecclesiastical, vocational, social and educational establishments also had collections of books, semi-private libraries that only selected people had access to.

Circulating libraries, or lending libraries, were established in the 18th century. It was just the books that circulated: these were not mobile or travelling libraries! 

Circulating libraries were run for profit, so subscriptions and borrowing fees were payable. Although there were costs, borrowing a book was very much cheaper than buying it would have been. By joining a circulating library, even people who could afford to buy books would get a lot more reading material for their money.

More about Diana Wynne Jones and her book deprivation

Some writers have very interesting things to say about books, reading and writing. I like it even more when they mention public libraries too!

Diana Wynne Jones is yet another writer whose thoughts on these topics have inspired some commentary. 

I have something to add to the previous article about the dire shortage of reading material that she experienced as a child.

I said earlier that thanks to public libraries I didn’t miss much in the way of good books when I was growing up. I am very grateful for that. I feel very sorry for imaginative children with enquiring minds who were forced to subsist on a diet of crumbs of reading material.

Diana Wynne Jones is a little ambivalent on the subject. After reading about the perpetual book famine and the desperate begging, saving and scrounging, I was surprised to see that she said that perhaps it was all for the best in some ways.