Book contents
- Institutions of Literature, 1700–1900
- Institutions of Literature, 1700–1900
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction Literature and Institutions
- Chapter 1 Knowledge Exchange in the Seventeenth Century
- Chapter 2 ‘Supporting Mutual Benevolence’
- Chapter 3 Institutions without Addresses
- Chapter 4 Eighteenth-Century Musenhof Courts as Bridges and Brokers for Cultural Networks and Social Reform
- Chapter 5 Becoming Institutional
- Chapter 6 Circulating Libraries as Institutional Creators of Genres
- Chapter 7 Lecturing Networks and Cultural Institutions, 1740–1830
- Chapter 8 Catalogues as Instituting Genres of the Nineteenth-Century Museum
- Chapter 9 Charles Lamb and the British Museum as an Institution of Literature
- Chapter 10 A Disruptive and Dangerous Education and the Wealth of the Nation
- Chapter 11 ‘The Ladies’ Contribution’
- Chapter 12 ‘[L]etters Must Increase’
- Chapter 13 Networks, Nodes, and Beacons
- Chapter 14 The Book as Medium
- Index
Chapter 9 - Charles Lamb and the British Museum as an Institution of Literature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 June 2022
- Institutions of Literature, 1700–1900
- Institutions of Literature, 1700–1900
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction Literature and Institutions
- Chapter 1 Knowledge Exchange in the Seventeenth Century
- Chapter 2 ‘Supporting Mutual Benevolence’
- Chapter 3 Institutions without Addresses
- Chapter 4 Eighteenth-Century Musenhof Courts as Bridges and Brokers for Cultural Networks and Social Reform
- Chapter 5 Becoming Institutional
- Chapter 6 Circulating Libraries as Institutional Creators of Genres
- Chapter 7 Lecturing Networks and Cultural Institutions, 1740–1830
- Chapter 8 Catalogues as Instituting Genres of the Nineteenth-Century Museum
- Chapter 9 Charles Lamb and the British Museum as an Institution of Literature
- Chapter 10 A Disruptive and Dangerous Education and the Wealth of the Nation
- Chapter 11 ‘The Ladies’ Contribution’
- Chapter 12 ‘[L]etters Must Increase’
- Chapter 13 Networks, Nodes, and Beacons
- Chapter 14 The Book as Medium
- Index
Summary
Charles Lamb spent two periods working at the library of the British Museum, in 1804–1807 and 1826–1827, as preparation for a volume of extracts from old plays in the Garrick collection entitled Specimens of English Dramatick Poets (published 1808) and latterly a series of contributions based on the same collection that appeared in William Hone’s Table Book (1827). In the roughly twenty years separating these two periods both the library itself and Lamb’s working life changed significantly, Lamb having left the employment in the East India Office to become a ‘superannuated man’ in 1825. This chapter examines these changes in the context of the emergence of scientific and literary Institutions in the early decades of the nineteenth century. In tandem with the British Museum, the libraries of these Institutions facilitated the emergence of institutionalized reading or professional literary ‘research’, with long-term implications for the emerging literary field in the Romantic period. Lamb’s two sojourns working on the Garrick plays offer a perspective from which to gauge diversification in reading practices in the early nineteenth century, who could read in institutional contexts, and what, ultimately, such reading might be for.
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- Institutions of Literature, 1700–1900 , pp. 178 - 195Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022