ABSTRACT

For Samuel Johnson, Wilkie Collins and Q. D. Leavis, reference to a ‘common5 or ‘general5 readership entailed the broadest of gestures toward literate society while, at the same time, admitting a distinction between different competencies within that society. The ‘common5 of Johnson's ‘common reader5 refers to a social collective, but it also marks out a less refined sub-group. It means both ‘Publick; general, serving the use of all5 and ‘Vulgar; mean; not distinguished by excellence5.2 More precisely, as Virginia Woolf noted, Johnson's identification of a common reader divided profes­ sional from non-professional reading.3 The ‘common reader5 and the ‘reading public5 were terms employed by the professional critic to designate the mass of unprofessional readers whose sheer market power would nevertheless be the final and most materially effective form of criticism.