A much-delayed report – you can find the first one here.

(Note, these are my thoughts and collected snippets from the sessions I attended, and should not necessarily be taken as a full reflection of what the speaker said. And I think they are accurate, but it was an intense two days. Caveat rector.)

Ryan Stephenson (University of Ottawa) A “Headachy Tomb” in the Heart of London: Women’s Writing and the British Museum in George Gissing’s New Grub Street

Marion is the only female writer in the book who uses the Reading Room, but she finds it gloomy and headache inducing “a taste of fog in the warm, heady air”.

Writing in 1891, an author for the British Library Association said that women readers entered with the air of an intruder. Throughout Britain there were separate entrances to libraries for women!!!, and separate desks; in public libraries there were separate issue desks.

This was mostly it seems to “protect” the men – it was often claimed that women were distracting, prone to gossip, giggle, even, shock horror, rustle their skirts. An article in the Saturday Review of 1886 portrayed the woman reader: “she flirts and eats strawberries behind the folios”.

A measure from 1889 in the Reading Room, that readers could not be supplied with novels within five years of publication except by special written application was seen as a measure for keeping out frivolous women.

By contrast women’s writing can be agreeably domestic and unthreatening. In the novel Dora writes from her boudoir, wears light colours, keeps up appearances, is “feminine”.

Suggested reference: Flint, The Woman Reader
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