Charles Knight: Educator, Publisher, Writer (review)
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Valerie Gray begins Charles Knight: Educator, Publisher, Writer by arguing for the necessity of a comprehensive study of Knight, "a multifaceted man of letters in the pre-specialist early nineteenth-century sense of the term: that is, a scholar, an author, a critic and according to Carlyle 'our most important modern person"' (3), whose active career as popular educator and publisher spanned over fifty years (1812–1869). In six chapters, Gray provides that study.
Chapter 2 is devoted to Knight's early career as editor and journalist. Gray traces Knight's development politically and socially as he engaged in the life of the city, advocating education and cheap wholesome reading material, and she concludes that during this period Knight "did his utmost to think independently and dispassionately on every topic, but favoured moderate liberal reform" (34).
In Chapter 3, Gray asserts that the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK) was both Knight's "salvation and his nemesis" (43). She explores Knight's relationship with founder Henry Brougham, the criticism that Knight was interested in publications as social control, and Knight's founding of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge. In her general discussion of Knight's publications, including the Almanac and the Penny Magazine, Gray highlights Knight's quest to "keep up standards of creative integrity and of production and to keep prices down; to ensure readability, accuracy and originality and to provide numerous illustrations" (62).
Gray begins Chapter 4, on Knight as a popularizer of education and literacy, by explaining that Knight's "educational work pervaded his whole life and far exceeded his role as publisher of popular literature for the SDUK" (95). Gray provides an interesting summary of the state of the (largely nonexistent) educational system and of Knight's contributions toward reform. She also discusses Knight's relationship to other reformers, such as his wife Sally, her good friend Harriet Martineau, Charles Dickens, the Utilitarian Edwin Chadwick, and the Mechanics' Institutes. In Chapter 5, on Knight as a popularizer of political economy," Gray's primary argument is that Knight was not the model for the Utilitarian educator Thomas Gradgrind in Dickens's Hard Times. The chapter is divided into five chronological sections, each containing a wealth of information.
Chapter 6 concentrates on Knight's distinction of being "instrumental in creating the first 'mass market' readership" (153). Gray claims that "critics have underestimated Knight, chiefly because they have failed to [End Page 290] take account of his entire output in the context of contemporary publishing conditions" (154). She asserts that Knight, like Dickens, believed in entertainment and instruction as co-existing. She discusses Knight's challenges with regard to competition and commercial pressures, readership, and the infamous "taxes on knowledge," and she also discusses his innovations with regard to illustration and engraving, coloring prints mechanically, and the distribution system.
Gray's study includes a detailed chronology of Knight's life, useful endnotes for each chapter, and a comprehensive bibliography. She includes ample biographical and historical information, ideas for further study, 15 original illustrations, and the text of Knight's will. Chapters 3 and 6 will be of particular interest to scholars of Victorian periodicals. [End Page 291]
Juliette Berning Schaefer is Associate Professor of English at Ohio Dominican University, where she teaches British Literature and Composition. Her research interests include Victorian literature, women's studies, and teaching, technology, and composition. She has reviewed several books for VPR.
