The campaign seeks to reverse declining levels of reading for pleasure, explored in two<\/a> reports<\/a>: Children and Young People\u2019s Reading in 2025 and The State of the Nation\u2019s Adult Reading 2024. It does not promote novels exclusively, but they are inevitably a popular choice for many readers. <\/p>\n Beginning from the premise that reading \u201cexpands worlds, sharpens minds and fuels creativity\u201d<\/a>, the campaign echoes ongoing research into the relationship between novel reading and personal wellbeing. For example, a 2023 study<\/a> carried out at the University of Edinburgh recently showed that reading fiction promotes positive emotions, connection with others and personal growth. <\/p>\n At a time when we are being encouraged to read more, it is striking to consider how attitudes towards novel reading have evolved since the genre began to develop during the 18th century<\/a>. In Britain, early examples were written by Daniel Defoe<\/a> and Samuel Richardson<\/a>. But the novel ultimately emerged from an earlier European tradition<\/a> and was heavily influenced by nonfictional forms, including letters and histories. <\/p>\n Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the novel was generally considered low-brow literature, often being described<\/a> by critics (in some cases seriously and in others more jokingly) as a kind of poison, waste or disease. <\/p>\n Around the turn of the 19th century, the novel\u2019s reputation reached an all-time low. One reason for this was that more novels were being written in Britain than ever before. This was the Romantic period<\/a> \u2013 best remembered today for giving us the novels of Jane Austen<\/a>, Walter Scott<\/a> and Mary Shelley<\/a>, who gave the world Frankenstein.<\/p>\n But it was also a period in which a whole raft of other novels by now-forgotten authors were produced en-masse. Austen alludes to this in Northanger Abbey<\/a> (1817) when, making fun of the idea that all novels are bad, she refers to \u201cthe trash with which the press now groans\u201d.<\/p>\n The number of people reading novels also increased dramatically during these years, meaning that the dangers posed by novels seemed even more threatening. Novel reading was thus a kind of guilty pleasure \u2013 people knew that it was disapproved of, but still they indulged \u2013 much like fast food or trash TV today.<\/p>\n In the introduction to her 50-volume book The British Novelists<\/a> in 1810 \u2013 one of the earliest attempts to canonise the novel \u2013 the poet Anna Laetitia Barbauld<\/a> recognises this tension: <\/p>\n A collection of novels has a better chance of giving pleasure than of commanding respect [\u2026] but their leaves are seldom found unopened, and they occupy the parlour and the dressing-room while productions of higher name are often found gathering dust upon the shelf. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But why was novel reading considered so disreputable?<\/p>\n As Barbauld suggests, novel reading was deemed frivolous and not nearly as valuable a use of time as reading, say, a work of history or moral philosophy, which offered new knowledge and ways of understanding the world. <\/p>\n There was also a concern that novel readers would become so immersed in fiction that they would either no longer be able to distinguish it from real life or neglect their daily duties. In Marriage<\/a> (1818), a novel by Austen\u2019s Scottish contemporary Susan Ferrier<\/a>, the heavily satirised housewife Mrs Gaffaw \u201creads novels\u201d and is therefore \u201cabove managing her house\u201d. <\/p>\n Within Romantic-period novels, including those by Austen and Ferrier, numerous examples can be found of readers who become overly absorbed in fiction. The consequences of this are invariably bad \u2013 often including sexual misconduct and moral decay \u2013 thereby providing warnings to other readers. <\/p>\n Today, a different view is taken. As one young reader cited in a recent article on the wellbeing benefits of reading fiction put it<\/a>, novels provide an opportunity to \u201ccalm down and just get away from the world\u201d. Getting lost in a novel is a good thing \u2013 one that allows time for quiet and reflection. <\/p>\nNovel reading as guilty pleasure<\/h2>\n
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Evolving attitudes<\/h2>\n
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