Professor Oulton talks to The Margate Bookie

Professor Carolyn Oulton has been interviewed by The Margate Bookie about her forthcoming book, ‘Down from London: Seaside Reading in the Railway Age’ (released March 2022).

What’s Down from London all about?

The title is slightly tongue in cheek. I wanted to know what people were actually reading down by the coast on their holidays. As books could still be quite expensive in those days, I wonder if they were worried about getting sand on what were likely to be library copies.

As part of my research into seaside reading from the 1840s to the 1930s, I came across dozens of authors I’d never heard of, but all of them suggest that there’s something special about the seaside setting. There’s also a consensus that the act of reading itself is somehow different when you do it by the sea. One of the great joys was to find so many novels set in Kent resorts.

Read the full interview here https://bit.ly/3oxQbLR

Professor Oulton is the co-founder and Director of the International Centre for Victorian Women Writers (ICVWW) at Canterbury Christ Church University, the only research centre in the UK to focus on 19th century women authors. Carolyn is also the Project Lead for https://kent-maps.online/ in collaboration with JSTOR Labs. Carolyn’s current research is on Victorian practices of shared reading.

Find out more about Creative Writing courses at Canterbury Christ Church University here: https://bit.ly/34o16RA