ABSTRACT
During nineteenth century two changes have taken place in the relationship assumed between writers and readers. The first is summed up in the concept of what was called by F. R. Leavis 'tilass civilization and minority culture', the second is the rise of literary studies as an academic profession. Though a number of those who believed most fervently that mass literacy was culturally disastrous were professional teachers of literature, the two tendencies were only loosely related. It is difficult to know how far, in this period, the readership of serious fiction changed either in its personnel or in its conception of itself in relation to the rest of the population. There was a far greater chance in 1940 than at the beginning of the century that a man or woman introducing a new book to the public was a professional academic. The writer of a book about some established figure of the past was almost certain to be a professional.
