ABSTRACT
This chapter explores nineteenth-century cultural debates surrounding blind reading and traces the response of Victorian Britain, a culture characterized by the proliferation of print, to embossed printing. It argues sighted commentators notions about the relationship between touch and sight both informed and impeded the development of a print culture for blind people. The chapter begins with changing conceptions of the faculty and function of touch, examining ways in which the widely publicized advent of printing for the blind participated in and fueled a broader reevaluation of vision's status as the preeminent sense. It argues the establishment of a universal embossed alphabet was impeded by sighted community's investment in bringing reading by touch into the closest possible alignment with reading by sight. The chapter discusses public performances of blind reading and attributes the mixed reception of the performances to their highlighting, rather than downplaying, of differences between touch and sight and between the two groups who relied on senses for reading.
