Preface to 'Reading Speaking Pictures'

Below is a long overdue update on this blog. The post is a small excerpt from my first chapter on Richardson's reading communities and the idea of reading as a social, not solitary, activity in the eighteenth century. The discussion was inspired by the small aquatint designed by Susanna Highmore, copies of which are found both in the National Portrait Gallery (http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw40221/Samuel-Richardson?LinkID=mp03775&role=sit&rNo=4) and in Anna Barbauld's Selected Correspondence of Samuel Richardson.