At best, many thought of reading books, particularly novels, a distraction from their roles at home as wives and mothers, and at worst an activity through which harmful ideas could be planted in their minds. However, there were concerns about the effects of reading on women. Geoffery Wall (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1857 reprint, London and New York: Penguin, 1992), 117.ĭuring the 1800s, as books were being published at an unprecedented scale, more middle class girls, despite the opposition, were receiving basic education. Would they not have the right to tell the police, if the librarian still persisted in his poisonous trade? 1 Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary: Provincial Lives, trans. The old lady took it upon herself to call in person at the lending library and notify them that Emma was cancelling her subscription. Therefore, it was decided to prevent Emma from reading novels. It all leads to no good, my poor boy, and anyone with no religion always comes to a bad end. She laid the blame at her preoccupation with books:īusy reading novels, wicked books, things written against religion where priests are made a mockery with speeches taken from Voltaire. In Gustave Flaubert’s masterpiece, released in 1857, the mother-in-law of Madame Bovary complained to her son that his wife is not paying enough attention to her home.
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