Influence

William St Clair (TLS May 12) makes the commonsensical point that a history of ideas requires an accompanying social history of reading, which is a history of the publishing trade: “When we read a book or essay called, say, ‘The Age of Wordsworth,’ should we not be concerned that, in his lifetime, most of Wordsworth’s books were produced in editions of 500 or 1,000 copies, many of which were remaindered or wasted several years after publication? Could that amount of reading have shaped the minds of 10-15 million people? Especially when Wordsworth was, on the whole, reinforcing the ideas of the mainstream culture of his day? How do we deal with the fact that over two million copies of Scott’s verse and prose romances had been sold in Britain alone by the middle of the nineteenth century, maybe a million more than all other authors put together? And Scott was regarded by the best critics as the equal of Homer, a great teacher and model, not a predecessor of Jeffry Archer or pulp fiction.”