Wadsworth, Sarah

English

epublications@Marquette

Marquette Universitye-Publications@MarquetteEnglish Faculty Research and Publications English, Department of1-1-2010Review of Valerie Gray's Charles Knight: Educator,Publisher, WriterSarah WadsworthMarquette University, sarah.wadsworth@marquette.eduPublished version. The Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, Vol. 5, (2010): 144-146.Publisher link. © 2010 Edinburgh Bibliographical Society. Used with permission.Valerie Gray, Charles Knight: Educator, Publisher, Writer. The Nineteenth Century Series. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). 233p. ISBN: 0-7546-5219-X. £55 The historical image of Charles Knight, best remembered as the superintendent of publications for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, has suffered as a result of his ties to this benevolent nineteenth-century organization. Variously distorted and misunderstood as a cold theoretician on the one hand or a naive idealist on the other, Knight has been unfortunately diminished by historians who have focused too narrowly on this single dimension of the man's career. In Charles Knight: Educator, Publisher, Writer Valerie Gray addresses this deficiency. Her accomplished study seeks both to differentiate Knight as a thinker from the SDUK and its sponsors and to demonstrate the breadth and reach of his professional interests, reform efforts, and technical innovations beyond the scope of the organization to which his fate has been securely yoked. Working extensively with archival materials, Knight's own editorials and other pUblications, and unpublished theses and dissertations, Gray's book fills a significant void in its multifaceted approach to this important man ofletters. 144 I Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society Kn,AS indica~ed by the subtitle, Gray takes stock of the many areas to which Ight cO,ntri~uted professionally. This is no all-encompassing biography: r~ad~~ wIll d,lscover little of Knight's private life, personal foibles, and q otJd~an routm~s. Rather, Gray reveals, methodically and persistently, the ~~foldmg ~f Knight's public life, with each chapter devoted to one facet of IS profeSSIOnal contributions: journalism, education and literacy, political economy, publishing, and, of course, the SDUK. Despite the topical arrangement of chapters, Gray admirably demonstrates the ways in which Knight integrated all of~ese pursuits, maintaining a relatively consistent mission and philosophy over bme and across a range of commercial, charitable, and artistic endeavors, At the same time, she demonstrates how Knight's overall thinking continued to evolve along a fairly constant are, independently with respect to political parties and charitable organizations. Although, as Gray points out, the materials for a full-fledged biography of Knight do not exist, this book manages to humanize its subject In so doing, Gray rescues Knight from persistent tendencies on the part of earlier scholars to view him either as a Dickensian caricature of misguided refonnist zeal or a somewhat sinister advocate of social control masquerading as benevolence. In putting him forward as 'a prime force in a great movement" .. one of the major social refonners of the nineteenth century' (p, 1), she also rebuffs those who would reduce him to a mere mouthpiece or puppet of the SDUK, a one-trick pony with a single accomplishment, whether it be The British Almanac, The Penny Magazine, The Penny Cyclopaedia, or Knowledge is Power. Instead, she reveals him to be very much his own man, and, indeed, something of a Renaissance man who valued art and literature no less than science and technology, and who promoted a great numbe~ of efforts to improve the material conditions of the working classes. Along WIth the lofty (and apparently, for some dubious) aim of diffusing useful knowledge, Knight used his influence to ad~ocate improved public health policies, tax refonn, and a shorter working day for labourers. In fleshing OU! ~ese and other aspects of~ight's public life, Gray also situates her subject Wlthm a broad network ofwnters and refonners, including Henry Brougham, Harriet Martineau, and Dickens. Gray's appraisal of Knight is, o~ th; ~hole, .eve~-handed and, jUdicious. Where gaps exist - as in the case o~ght s mnovahons m the field of1l1ustration _ she acknowledges th~t the t~PIC .IS beyo?d her scope. ~e book draws on l ' studies of Knight s contnbutions to VIsual culture and mcludes a number ear ler . fhi '11 d of handsomely re~r.oduced spec?D~ns 0 s I ustra~~ texts, Yet Gray focuses chiefly on his wntmgs and the~ Impact, both polItIcally and commercially, as prodUCts in the ~ew~y emerg~g mass market It ~s un,fortunate, therefore, that so little of Knight s own VOIce c?mes throug~ m this publication. Gray effectively conv~ys the ,m~ssage and Import of Knight's editorials, histories, biographies, and JournalIstlc features but preserves little of their original flavor and occasional flair. The effect is to obscure further the personality, if not the personage, at the center of the story. Nevertheless, Gray has unquestionably Journal o/the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society I 145 done both Knight and those who seek to understand his contribution a valuable service in retrieving him from the bleak abyss of scholarly neglect. Sarah Wadsworth Marquette University 146 J Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society 

Review of Valerie Gray\u27s \u3cem\u3eCharles Knight: Educator, Publisher, Writer\u3c/em\u3e

https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1326&amp;context=english_fac

Review of Valerie Gray\u27s \u3cem\u3eCharles Knight: Educator, Publisher, Writer\u3c/em\u3e

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