The Kids These Days and The Novels: F. C. W., Poisonous Literature, and Cranky Letters to the Editor: Cruise Control

Last time, we started looking at some hysterical letters by F. C. W. (who may very well be Francis Channing Woodworth) that were published in The Mother’s Magazine in the 1840s. Fourth on the list is “Moral Poisons: The Antidote,” which starts with the rather worrying sentence “Under the general caption of ‘Moral Poisons,’ I … Continue reading The Kids These Days and The Novels: F. C. W., Poisonous Literature, and Cranky Letters to the Editor: Cruise Control

The Kids These Days and The Novels: F. C. W., Poisonous Literature, and Cranky Letters to the Editor

JT Crane isn’t alone in comparing novels to drugs. I was browsing merrycoz.org, which is where I’ve found a lot of the characters I’ve written about, when I found a couple of articles written by F. C. W. (quite possibly Francis C. Woodworth) published in The Mother’s Magazine, . In “Moral Poisons: The Antidote,” F. … Continue reading The Kids These Days and The Novels: F. C. W., Poisonous Literature, and Cranky Letters to the Editor

The Kids These Days and The Novels: JT Crane, Popular Amusements, and Other Things That Will Kill You

J[onathan] T[ownley] Crane’s book Popular Amusements was published in 1869. As you might guess (or maybe you can figure out from the teaser in my last post, or from the title of this one), the answer to the question “What popular amusements does Crane suggest?” is “NO!” Base ball (sic)? It’ll kill you dead. Dancing? … Continue reading The Kids These Days and The Novels: JT Crane, Popular Amusements, and Other Things That Will Kill You

The Kids These Days and The Novels: James Baldwin, Ph.D., and the Absolute Worst Things Ever

Let’s turn to James Baldwin, Ph.D., who included an absolutely hilarious warning against bad books in his rather comically titled The Book-Lover. Dr. Baldwin says, “In these last years of the nineteenth century there is no more prolific cause of evil than bad books.” Wow, if the worst that people in his part of the … Continue reading The Kids These Days and The Novels: James Baldwin, Ph.D., and the Absolute Worst Things Ever

The Kids These Days and The Novels: Hannah More and Novels as a Tool of Oppression

Hannah More, a well-known philanthropist and playwright, author of one novel and many Evangelical moral tracts, saw the growth of novel reading as a serious threat. More is actually a really interesting and complex character, so before we chuckle at her silly ideas, let’s learn more about her. More was a strong believer in education. … Continue reading The Kids These Days and The Novels: Hannah More and Novels as a Tool of Oppression

The Kids These Days and The Novels: The Reverend James Fordyce and Sexy, Sexy Modesty, feat. Mary Wollstonecraft

The Reverend James Fordyce was quite a popular author for a while, and like Clara Reeve, he would be thoroughly horrified by how many modern women just aren’t into being hooted at in the street and treated like mobile vending machines for sexual favors. Reverend Fordyce was the author of the popular-in-its-time Sermons to Young … Continue reading The Kids These Days and The Novels: The Reverend James Fordyce and Sexy, Sexy Modesty, feat. Mary Wollstonecraft

The Kids These Days and The Novels: Clara Reeve and the Circulating Library Menace

So far in The Kids These Days and The Novels, we’ve seen people complain that novels can cause earthquakes, that novels can be written by women, that novels can cause false taste in criticism and art, that novels are too much fun to possibly be good for you, and that there are so darned many … Continue reading The Kids These Days and The Novels: Clara Reeve and the Circulating Library Menace

The Kids These Days and The Novels: John Ruskin and the Case of Endangered Art

John Ruskin was a multi-talented artist, writer, drafter, and social thinker, as well as one of the top art critics of the Victorian age. He also had some goofy ideas about novels that, coincidentally, sound a lot like Coleridge’s. In his book The Elements of Drawing, Ruskin tries to teach his readers to develop their … Continue reading The Kids These Days and The Novels: John Ruskin and the Case of Endangered Art