Beginning where volume one of The Common Touch leaves off, selections of English popular literature from the Restoration to the mid-years of the eighteenth century are offered in this second and final volume. However, while interest in such traditional literary types as the ballad and chapbook continued unabated in this period, new forms began to emerge, with the popularity of journals and novels reflecting not only a more diversified readership, but also the rise of prose as a medium for public debate and entertainment. With increasing middle-class literacy filtering down to servants and apprentices, moreover, the voices of the destitute and the social outcast could be increasingly heard, marking a shift from high-born to low-born, from town to country and from men to women (and children) - culminating in the Romantic movement at the end of the century.
- ISBN13 9781443898706
- Publish Date 18 May 2017 (first published 18 July 2014)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Cambridge Scholars Publishing
- Edition Unabridged edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 460
- Language English