Shakespeare for the People: Working Class Readers, 1800–1900

Beginning by mapping out an overview of the expansion of elementary education in Britain across the nineteenth century, Andrew Murphy explores, for the first time, the manner in which Shakespeare acquired a working-class readership. He traces developments in publishing which meant that editions of Shakespeare became ever cheaper as the century progressed. Drawing on more than a hundred published and manuscript autobiographical texts, the book examines the experiences of a wide range of working-class readers. Particular attention is focused on a set of radical readers for whom Shakespeare\'s work had a special political resonance. Murphy explores the reasons why the playwright\'s working-class readership began to fall away from the turn of the century, noting the competition he faced from professional sports, the cinema, radio and television. The book concludes by asking whether it matters that, in our own time, Shakespeare no longer commands a general popular audience.

• Draws evidence from over 100 nineteenth-century manuscript and print autobiographies, allowing the reader to engage with a wide range of primary sources • Includes an appendix which provides biographical details of the autobiographers quoted • Opens up a new area of research for Shakespeare studies - the previously unexplored issue of Shakespeare and class

Introduction; 1. The educational background; 2. The publishing background; 3. Reading; 4. Political Shakespeare; 5. Decline and fall; Afterword; Appendix 1: Autobiographers by year of birth; Appendix 2: Autobiographers listed alphabetically; Bibliography.