Introduction

The history of reading has developed in interesting ways, particularly over the past twenty years, both in the French and English-speaking worlds. The chapter claims the material builds into a specifically Proustian contribution to the history of reading in the France of the Third Republic. Journees de lecture was written in the spring of 1905 as a preface to the translation of Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies on which Proust worked with Marie Nordlinger and others. Anne Henry, in her chapter on Proust's preface and annotations to Sesame and Lilies, gives a useful overview of the theory of socialisme esthetique expressed by Ruskin in the two lectures. Ruskin shared the concerns of some of his contemporaries in relation to popular education and the future of democracy. Ruskin fought the concern for material goods and comforts by focusing on the hidden treasures of libraries, treasures which should be shared equally across society.