ABSTRACT
A feature of the cultural politics of any period is the relationship in which it stands
to the mechanisms of social reproduction and change. For public displays of cultural
knowledge, tastes, preferences and patterns of consumption not only reveal
something about the social and cultural aspirations and allegiances of individuals,
but also provide evidence of their relationship with the prevailing economic and
social situation.2 In the second half of the nineteenth century the widespread
increase in the consumption of cultural goods by the middle and upper classes
generated new opportunities for such displays by many of who struggled for
survival in the literary market-place. The brutality of that struggle was something of
which Grant Allen was only too aware: as he ruefully remarked, ‘Brain for brain, in
no market can you sell your abilities to such poor advantage. Don’t take to literature
if you’ve capital enough in hand to buy a good broom, and energy enough to annex a
vacant crossing.’3
