344 © Institute for Research in Social Communication, Slovak Academy of Sciences HUMAN AFFAIRS 23, 344–358, 2013 DOI: 10.2478/s13374-013-0132-6 THE READING IDEAL AND READING PREFERENCES IN THE AGE OF JOSEPH II IVONA KOLLÁROVÁ Abstract: When censorship was reformed during the era of Joseph II publishing and the book trade underwent a liberalisation. Enlightenment conceptions helped create the image of the ideal reader—someone who reads to acquire knowledge or to improve his spiritual life. During the reign of Joseph II reading spread to all social strata, but readers’ preferences did not follow a reading ideal. This is demonstrated by significant urban-rural disparities. The publishing projects of the Protestant elite met with failure in the distribution phase and with the indifference country people displayed towards spiritual literature. This relates to several other social phenomena such as literacy and living conditions. Archival sources, which are relevant to lending library research, indicate the reading preferences of the urban classes. An uncontrollable reading mania targeted literature and short political and anticlerical writing, which triggered public discussions on the dangers of uncontrolled reading. The print medium helped shape a “reading public“, whose reading activities occupied an area between mainstream cultural consumption and the dissemination of political news. Key words: printing; reading; Enlightenment; Joseph II; censorship; literacy; devotional books; brochures; lending library. The history of reading The history of reading is one of the most appealing areas of the history of culture. Copious research into many disciplines such as book history, historical anthropology and literary history, have produced case studies and microanalyses (Towheed, Crone and Halsey, 2010). What went on in the mind of the reader in the last few centuries? We wish to understand this, using testamentary and library catalogues, inscriptions, annotations in book margins and other subtle references. Rather fittingly Reinhard Wittmann has called this methodology “höchst prekäres Unterfangen” (Wittmann 1982, 3). We wish to build on the model of literary communication, and on the theory of the individual and subjective reception of a literary text (Lesňák 1982, 12-13, 18-19). But historians of reading and literary communication scholars do not study the same subject. Literary communication and the reception of a literary text occupy a marginal position in the history of printing. The typographical medium is much wider. The printed book became a typical consumer product and gradually shaped two important reading categories. According to Engelsing, people read “intensively” from the Middle Ages until 1750. They