Jane Bradly

PhD thesis title: ‘The literary environment of the First World War as illustrated by the letters of Agnes Dorothy French and Stanley Wilbraham Burditt and how their responses to it was influenced by their education experiences.’

I have access to 178 letters written in 1916/17. He was in the Cheshire Regiment, based in Aberystwyth in 1916 and she was a student at Aberystwyth. I have transcribed the letters and listed the 61 books the writers talk about in their letters. I am looking at the English syllabus in schools and universities in the early years of the twentieth century to see how formal education influenced what readers chose to read for pleasure. I am also looking at the current situation to see how things may have changed in the 150 years since English was recognised as an academic subject.