How Should One Read a Book?

This essay appeared in its third iteration in Woolf’s collection The Second Common Reader. The Common Reader was a collection of Woolf’s essays addressed not to critics or authors but, as the name implies, to the average reader. It was published in two volumes as a collection of Woolf’s ongoing essay writing, in 1925 and 1932. The Common Reader attempts to equip the average reader with the tools to read, understand, and even judge great literature. In all, her collection provides an introduction to many of the relevant authors of her time. The book’s title suggests many meanings. The noun “reader” refers to the person reading but is also a term for an educational collection of works: a “primer” or a program of reading to be worked though. “Common” means “ordinary” but also “in common”: a “common room” is a room in universities where students or teachers gather with their peers socialize and share ideas. In calling her book the “common reader” Woolf suggests that she and her readers share a communal experience: they read “in common” with each other.

Published soon after she had written several of her most famous works like To The Lighthouse (1927) and A Room of One’s Own (1929), The Second Common Reader is representative of Woolf’s literary thinking at the time. She provides wide-ranging analysis of key authors, especially women, including Mary Wollstonecraft, Dorothy Wordsworth, and George Meredith. Essay titles in the second collection include “Cowper and Lady Austen,” “Robinson Crusoe,” and “The Novels of Thomas Hardy.” In “How Should One Read a Book?” Woolf compares these authors’ distinct styles, suggesting that the composition of this essay formed a key part of formulating the ideas later published in The Second Common Reader. “How Should One Read a Book?” was included as the final essay of the collection, in a slightly revised form.

While the essay claims that readers should not bow to the authority of critics or writers, her language and references are arguably too complex for any “common” reader: the intellectual and educational standard of the work is very high. Furthermore, the essay begins by assuming that the reader of the essay has a house with a “drawing room” and a “dining room” and even a “reading room,” suggesting that she addresses a wealthy readership, as most of the original addressees at the private girls’ school would have been. Woolf is actively grappling with the role of critics in her work, trying to write herself into an answer that benefits readers and writers both. After exploring several different answers, she lands on the idea that ultimately one should read for one’s own pleasure. Nevertheless, truly understanding this essay collection requires background knowledge of several authors, writing styles, literary movements, and characters, to the point that an essay entitled “How Should One Read The Second Common Reader?” has been humorously proposed as a helpful amendment to Woolf’s collection of essays.