Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-f46jp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-26T18:20:58.616Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Popular entertainment and instruction, literary and dramatic: chapbooks, advice books, almanacs, ballads, farces, pantomimes, prints and shows

from PART I - LITERARY PRODUCTION AND DISSEMINATION: CHANGING AUDIENCES AND EMERGING MEDIA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Lance Bertelsen
Edited by
John Richetti
John Richetti
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Get access

Summary

At the chaotic intersection of English popular and print cultures stands Hogarth's magnificent female hawker, anchoring The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn (1747), the eleventh plate of a didactic moral history engraved in a consciously unpolished style and priced to appeal to an apprentice class at the crossroads of virtue and pleasure:

The Effects of Industry & Idleness Exemplified in the Conduct of two fellow prentices in twelve points Where calculated for the use & instruction of those young people wherein every thing nescessary to be convey'd to them is fully described in words as well as figure … [E]very thing necessary to be known was to be made as inteligible as possible and as fine engraving was not necessary to the main design provided that which is infinitely more material viz the characters and Expressions were well preservend, the purchase of them became within the reach of those for whom they [were] cheifly intended.

In this description, written in 1763, Hogarth fairly sums up the complex of instruction, entertainment, ostensible simplicity and affordable prices that had characterised the production and marketing of popular literature and drama for the previous hundred years. Of course, simplicity of intention in no way guaranteed simplicity of result, and in the hawker and her surroundings we find the abundant paradoxes linking official or commercial productions and popular responses to them: a legal demonstration of terror and control results in a chaotic festival fuelled by irreverence and gin; a printed ‘Last Dying Speech’ makes a marketable celebrity of a condemned man who has yet to speak; a ragged, dirty female carrying a child at the periphery of the crowd becomes a central symbol for popular print culture as she cries a minatory publication she probably cannot read to a socially mixed audience who will buy it more for entertainment than instruction.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of English Literature, 1660–1780 , pp. 61 - 86
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Addison, Joseph, and Steele, Richard, The Spectator, ed. Bond, Donald, 5 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Altick, Richard D., The Shows of London, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Nancy, Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Avery, Emmett L. (ed.), The London Stage 1660–1800, Part2: 1700–1729, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Backscheider, Paula, Spectacular Politics: Theatrical Power and Mass Culture in Early Modern England, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Bertelsen, Lance, Henry Fielding at Work: Magistrate, Businessman, Writer, New York: Palgrave, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertelsen, Lance, The Nonsense Club: Literature and Popular Culture 1749–1764, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Blake, William, For Children: The Gates of Paradise, London, 1793.Google Scholar
Boswell, James, Boswell's London Journal 1762–1763, ed. Pottle, Frederick, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950.Google Scholar
Brown, Tom, Amusements Serious and Comical, ed. Hayward, Arthur L., London: Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1927.Google Scholar
Capp, Bernard, English Almanacs 1500–1800: Astrology and the Popular Press, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Colley, Linda, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Darton, F. J. Harvey, Children's Books in England, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932.Google Scholar
Defoe, Daniel, The Family Instructor, London, 1715.Google Scholar
Dugaw, Dianne, Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650–1850, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Farquhar, George, The Stage-Coach, London, 1704.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fielding, Henry, The Author's Farce, ed. Woods, Charles B., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966.Google Scholar
Fielding, Henry, The Mock Doctor, London, 1732.Google Scholar
Garrick, David, Harlequin's Invasion, London, 1759.Google Scholar
Gay, John, The Beggar's Opera, ed. Roberts, Edgar V., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Gay, John, The What D'ye Call It, London, 1715.Google Scholar
George, M. D., London Life in the Eighteenth Century, London, 1925, rpt. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1984.Google Scholar
Glen, Heather, Vision and Disenchantment: Blake's ‘Songs’ and Wordsworth's ‘Lyrical Ballads’, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Harris, Tim (ed.), Popular Culture in England, c. 1500–1800, London: Macmillan, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, John, The Young Secretary's Guide, London, 1687.Google Scholar
Hogarth, William, ‘Autobiographical Notes’, in Burke, Joseph (ed.), The Analysis of Beauty, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955.Google Scholar
Hornbeck, Katherine, ‘Richardson's Familiar Letters and the Domestic Conduct Books’, Smith College Studies in Modern Languages 19.2 (January 1938).Google Scholar
Hughes, Leo, A Century of English Farce, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1956.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume, Robert D., Henry Fielding and the London Theatre 1728–1737, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Hume, Robert D., Henry Fielding and the London Theatre, 1728–1737, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Hunter, J. Paul, Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century Fiction, New York: W. W. Norton, 1990.Google Scholar
James, Elinor, Elinor James's Advice to the King and Parliament, London, 1715.Google Scholar
Johnson, Charles, The Force of Friendship, London, 1710.Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel, The Idler and The Adventurer, eds. Bate, W. J., Bullitt, John M., Powell, L. F., New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1963.Google Scholar
Linebaugh, Peter, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
McDowell, Paula, The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace 1678–1730, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowell, Paula, The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKendrick, Neil, Brewer, John and Plumb, J. H. (eds.), The Birth of a Consumer Society, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Midgley, Graham, The Life of Orator Henley, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Moore, Francis, Vox Stellarum, London, 1700.Google Scholar
[More, Hannah], ‘Patient Joe: Or, the Newcastle Collier’, Cheap Repository Shorter Tracts, London, 1798.Google Scholar
Morris, Robert cited in LeighWoods, Garrick Claims the Stage: Acting as Social Emblem in Eighteenth-Century England (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984).Google Scholar
Mullan, John and Reid, Christopher (eds.), Eighteenth-Century Popular Culture: A Selection, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Neuburg, Victor E., The Penny Histories, London: Oxford University Press, 1968.Google Scholar
Newbery, John, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, ed. Thwaite, M. F., New York Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967.Google Scholar
O'Brien, John, ‘Eighteenth-Century Pantomime and the Cultural Location of Entertainment(s)’, Theatre Journal 50.4 (1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Partridge, John, Merlinus Liberatus, London, 1680.Google Scholar
Paulson, Ronald, Hogarth, rev. edn, 3 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Paulson, Ronald, Popular and Polite Art in the Age of Hogarth and Fielding, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Pedersen, Susan, ‘Hannah More Meets Simple Simon: Tracts, Chapbooks, and Popular Culture in Late Eighteenth-Century England’, Journal of British Studies 25 (1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pope, Alexander, The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. Butt, John et al., New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1963.Google Scholar
Reay, Barry, Popular Cultures in England 1550–1750, New York: Longman, 1998.Google Scholar
Rich, John, Apollo and Daphne: or, Harlequin Mercury, London, 1725.Google Scholar
Rich, John, Harlequin a Sorcerer: With the Loves of Pluto and Proserpine, London, 1725.Google Scholar
Rich, John, Letters Written to and for Particular Friends, on the Most Important Occasions, London, 1741.Google Scholar
Rich, John, Perseus and Andromeda, London, 1730.Google Scholar
Richardson, Samuel, The Apprentice's ‘Vade Mecum’: or, Young Man's Pocket-Companion, London, 1734.Google Scholar
Rogers, Pat, Grub Street: Studies in a Subculture, London: Methuen, 1972.Google Scholar
Rogers, Pat, Literature and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century England, Brighton, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Sechelski, Denise S., ‘Garrick's Body and the Labor of Art in Eighteenth-Century Theater’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 29 (1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Settle, Elkanah, The Siege of Troy, London, 1703.Google Scholar
Shepard, Leslie, The History of Street Literature, Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1973.Google Scholar
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, The Critic, ed. Price, Cecil, 2 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Simons, John (ed.), Guy of Warwick and Other Chapbook Romances, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Smart, Christopher, Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Done into familiar verse, with occasional applications, for the use an improvement of younger minds, London, 1768.Google Scholar
Smart, Christopher, The Midwife; or the Old Woman's Magazine, 3 vols., London, 1751–3.Google Scholar
Spence, Joseph, Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men, Collected from Conversation, ed. Osborn, James M., 2 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spufford, Margaret, Small Books and Pleasant Histories, London: Methuen & Co, 1981.Google Scholar
Stallybrass, Peter and Allon, White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression, London: Methuen, 1986.Google Scholar
Swift, Jonathan, The Poems of Jonathan Swift, ed. Williams, Harold, 3 vols., 2nd edn, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958.Google Scholar
Swift, Jonathan, The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, ed. Davis, Herbert J. et al., 16 vols., Oxford: Blackwell, 1939–74.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P., Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture, New York: The New Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class, New York: Vintage, 1966.Google Scholar
Thurmond, John, Harlequin Shepard, London, 1724.Google Scholar
Thwaite, M. F., From Primer to Pleasure, London: The Library Association, 1963.Google Scholar
Todd, Dennis, Imagining Monsters: Miscreations of the Self in Eighteenth-Century England, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Vertue, George, Notebooks, 6 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934–55), vol. III.Google Scholar
Walker, Thomas, The Quaker's Opera; or, The Escapes of Jack Sheppard, London, 1728.Google Scholar
Watts, Isaac, Divine Songs Attempted in easy Language, for the Use of Children, 13th edn, London, 1735.Google Scholar
Winton, Calhoun, John Gay and the London Theatre, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993.Google Scholar
Wolley, Hannah, The Compleat Servant-Maid; or, The Young Maiden's Tutor, 4th edn, London, 1685.Google Scholar
Wolley, Hannah, The Gentlewoman's Companion: or, A Guide to the Female Sex Containing Directions of Behaviour, in All Places, Companies, relations and Conditions, from their Childhood Down to Old Age, London, 1675.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×