![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Listeners were told to imagine themselves as part of a “small group of friends” so they could “surrender to the story” of that particular day or evening. He apparently spent hours preparing notes and subtle reminders to inflect his voice in certain places. “In the time of Dickens,” for instance, “reading aloud at home was very much a common household entertainment.” The great British author was paid a pretty penny by captivated audiences in England and Ireland. Gurdon points out, “Silent reading of the sort we practice with our books and laptops and cellphones was once considered outlandish, a mark of eccentricity.” It was understood and, indeed, expected that these written documents would be read to others, for “to read at all was to read out loud.” Stories would come alive, and the characters and themes would become vivid sources of imagination and intrigue. Long before the advent of phonographs, radio, TV and computers, the simplest pleasures were often found in reading out passages in religious texts, manuscripts, stories and so forth. ![]()
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