‘Revolutionary’ project reveals reading habits of 19th century working-class Australians

Australian Common Reader tracks reading habits of mostly working-class Australians between 1861 and 1928

Australian butchers in the 19th century preferred to read thrillers, miners loved novels about horse racing, while the most popular author among doctors – and the Adelaide working class in 1861 – was Charles Dickens.

These are just some of the insights gleaned from the Australian Common Reader, a publicly accessible database of historical library borrowing data launched this week by the Australian National University.

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