Sixty Years Of Literacy THE OMNIVOROUS BRITISH READER

Press, Volume C, Issue 29500, 29 April 1961, Page 10

Sixty Years Of Literacy THE OMNIVOROUS BRITISH READER

(By RAYMOND WILLIAMS. author nf •'Cuttura and Sodrtv'J (From the Umtea Kingdom Information Service)

For the last 60 years there has been general literacy in Britain. Throughout the nineteenth century there was I a steady growth in the {number of those able ’.o (read: in 1840 some three out !of five, in 1870 four out of ) five, and in 1900 virtually (everyone. At all stages, the {actual provision of reading (matter has lagged behind I the growth in literacy: first newspapers and then books j were too expensive to get (general circulation. | In the 60 years of this [century, we have seen the distribution of reading ■matter, steadily catching up I with the level of literacy. ■ The Sunday newspapers led ■ the way. and were being read by a majority in 1910 and by virtually everyone in 1920. The daily newspapers followed, being read by a majority in 1920 and by virtually everyone in 1940. Magazines of many kinds have for the last 40 years reached the whole reading public, while books have in the last four or five years, for the first time, reached a bare majority. It is estimated that British people read more newspapers than any other society in the world, and also read more books, with the probable exception of the U.S.S.R.

Against this general background. what are the actual reading habits of the British? We can look first at newspapers. It is customary to divide British newspapers into three categories: “quality.” “middle.” and "tabloid.” In the daily papers the quality organs are "The Times.” the “Guardian,” the "Daily Telegraph" and some smaller provincial papers. The “middle” papers are the "Daily Mail,” the “Daily Herald” and the “Daily Express.’* The tabloids are the “Mirror” and the "Sketch.” In Sunday papers, the “Observer." the "Sunday Times” and the “Sunday Telegraph” are quality, the “People,” the “News of the World” and the “Dispatch." “middles.” and the "Pictorial” tabloid. There is. in fact, a good deal of overlapping between “middles” and “tabloids”; in style of journalism, though not in actual layout, the “Express,” the "People” and the "Dispatch” probably belong with the tabloids. There is also a Sunday paper. "Reynolds' News.” which is owned by the Co-operative movement, and a Communist daily paper, the "Daily Worker;” each has relatively, in its class, a very small circulation. Quality Papers Expanding

The circulation of the quality papers, both daily and Sunday. has been steadily growing. In proportion to total readership, it is still quite small, but the “Sunday Times.” the "Observer.” and the “Daily Telegraph” have between two and three million readers, while “The Times" and the “Guardian” have around three-quarters of a million each. At the same time, however, the "middle’' papers. especially those which are least tabloid in style. have been losing readers heavily to the tabloid press, which has made a really spectacular growth. In Sunday papers, the "News of the World” (though declining) vies with the “People" and the "Pictorial;" each can expect to reach between 12 and 15 million readers. In daily papers, the “Mirror” has 13 million readers, and the “Daily Express" is not far behind. But among the "middles.” the “News Chronicle” has recently disappeared, absorbed by the "Daily Mail." and the position of the “Daily Herald” is still very uncertain. There are signs of a more absolute division into “quality'’ and a mass" press with the middle institutions being forced out or into change of style to one or the other extreme.

In magazines, the predominant feature of the last 20 years has been a spectacular growth of magazines for women: these now have very large circulations and command very high advertising rates. An immensely varied number of magazines, at all levels and catering for all interests, still survive. But there has been an important decline in the old kind of popular magazine intended to be read by all the family. Instead, there has been a division and specialisation of the market, and most of the magazines are now owned by two predominant groups, each with large newspaper interests.

Thus we see special magazines for different groups of young people, and for other easily identifiable sections of the community. The result of these changes is that the magazine of popular education, which in th* past has been so important in Britain has virtually disappeared. Instead, there is this highly specialised range of popular magazines catering for the (interests of particular groups. : though, at the same time, the ■weekly reviews. offering serious opinion and comment, have flourished in the same {way as the quality newspapers. In this latter range, iwe have the “New Statesman.” the "Economist.” the "Spectator.” the “Listener” and “Time and Tide." and also the “Times Literary Supplement” and the "Manchester Guardian Weekly.” The highest readership in this group is about half a million.

Serious monthly magazines are also being more widely read. particularly "Encounter." the "Twentieth Century" and the “London (Magazine” The more specialised quarterly journals and learned periodicals are also being more widely read than at any previous time. ( In books the last few ■years have brought a pro-

found change. Books have ordinarily been very expensive in Britain, although there have been some famous cheap ■ series. The free public library system did a good deal to offset this, and some 500 million books a year are now borrowed through it. It we add the private libraries, we find a circulation of about 20 books a year a head of the adult population. The big recent change has been the very rapid extension of paperback publishing, pioneered by Penguin Book--since the 1930's but now being carried on by many competing firms. Sales here have been more than two million in the admittedly special recent case of Lawrence's “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” Most paperback publishing is still the reprinting of established books, but it is now taking place at many different levels, from popula: novels to learned works and even textbooks. Britain is Still relatively short of bookshops outside the capital and the university cities, but the distribution of paperbacks :s taking place in many new ways—not only through small newspaper shops but through tobacconists’ shops and garages, and even, recently. through slot machines. The result is that very much more book-buying is going on. and though some of the paperbacks are ephemeral a very much wider selection of the world's literature is now being regularly bought by a quite new public.

Meanwhile, between 18.6C0 and 20.000 new books appear every year, and the more successful of them find their way into paperback form very quickly. It may be only a matter of time before a considerable proportion of new books appear first in paperback form. for the present rate of expansion the possible reprints will in a matter of years be virtually exhausted. It is worth noticing, by the way. that the still growing popularity of television has not checked the flood of reading, as many had feared it might. The rising demand for every kind of cultural service (with the exception of the cinema and to some extent the theatre, which have been declining) seems certain to continue, and indeed is probably still only in a very early stage. The Author's Hard Lot What people are making of this vast amount of reading is very much more difficult to assess. The truth seems to be that more of everything is being read, good and bad alike. The effect on writers has been uneven. The principal advantage Is that a new author, even if not of a particularly popular kind, gets through to a considerable number of readers much more quickly than ever before. But in financial terms, in the middle of this boom in reading, the writers of Britain, though there are more of them than ever before, are not much better off. and indeed in some cases are worse off. Neither the public library service (where one book may be used without charge by hundreds of readers) nor the paperback reprint brings the author any reward proportionate to this great expansion of his public, and it is still very difficult for an author to live by writing books in Britain, though it is comparatively easy if he also writes for the newspapers and magazines. One final point Fears have been expressed in Britain that too much current reading is centred on violence and degraded sex; and certainly it is impossible to look at the more popular newspapers and at many of the paperbacks (especially their covers, which are often more violent or suggestive or both than the pages inside) without being aware of this tendency.-It is not the only tendency, however, and in any case it is quite clear that no form of censorship

(except in certain extreme cases of pornography) would be generally tolerated. The damaging tendencies armore evident in the race for circulation and profit, which many people in Britain believe to be Irrelevant and distorting to our culture. At the same time, the best answer to bad newspapers, and bad books is, tn the end. good newspapers and good books—and these are now more widely available to the British people, and more widely used by them, than at any time in our history.