Hello, it's your host, Andrew here. If you're enjoying Send Me to Sleep so far and you'd like to

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free trial in the description notes. Thanks so much for listening, and here's just a few ads before the

show begins. I find it quite funny that during the turn of the 20th century, there was a bit of a culture

in reading, in literature. In the UK, I know, but possibly in the rest of the Western world as well.

And that culture was that to be considered someone who's reading proper books, you'd need to be reading non-fiction and to sit and read a narrative of any kind.

A story would be considered more so to be a little bit infantile, a little bit pulpy, and less intellectual.

And of course, I wasn't actually around during the turn of the 20th century to know this as a fact myself but I'm largely getting

this from the works of Jane Austen and specifically in her book Northanger

Abbey she parodies Gothic novels in this book,

but also highlights a little bit about the culture of reading at the time,

and how you almost had to be ashamed to be picking up a horror novel or romance novel.

And it was considered a waste of time, something that didn't broaden your intellect in any way.

And I find that very funny, especially funny, because Jane Austen herself was one who commented

on this. And if you told someone today that you were reading Jane Austen,

working your way through the works of Jane Austen,

well, I think there wouldn't be many people who wouldn't consider you to be rather intellectual

or sophisticated for doing so.

And so it implies that at some point there was this cultural shift where stories became a little bit more valuable, a little bit more worthwhile,

and the craft of writing a story, of storytelling, was given much more prestige.

Now, exactly when that shift happened, I couldn't quite tell you.

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