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148
novelist Alan Sillitoe, “is in fact when one is on a train travelling alone. With
strangers roundabout, and unfamiliar scenery passing by the window.”
But there is something other than entertainment, which one derives from
reading in bed: a particular quality of privacy. Reading in bed is a self-centred act,
immobile, free from ordinary social conventions, invisible to the world, and one
that, because it takes place between the sheets, in the realm of lust and sinful
idleness, has something of the thrill of things forbidden.
The notion of reading in bed is not an ancient one. The Greek bed was a
wooden frame and not really practical for reading. It had a low head-rest but no
foot-board, a mattress and pillows, and was employed both for sleeping and for
reclining at leisure. In this position, it was possible to read a scroll by holding one
end with the left hand while the right elbow supported the body. But the procedure,
cumbersome at the best of times, became frankly uncomfortable after a short
while, and ultimately unbearable.
The Romans had a different bed for each of several different purposes,
including beds for reading, but Roman sleeping- bed would sometimes serve as a
reading-bed.
In the early years of Christian Europe, and well into the twelfth century,
ordinary beds were simple objects, often left behind during the forced retreats from
war and famine. Since only the rich had elaborate beds, few but the rich had books.
To be seen owning books and elaborate beds became indicative of one’s social
standing. The bedroom became not only the room in which the bourgeois slept, it
became the repository of collected goods – books included.
In Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, bedrooms – like almost
every other room in the house – were also passageways, so that a bedroom did not
necessarily guarantee peace and quiet for such activities as reading.
By the eighteenth century, even though bedrooms were still not undisturbed
spaces, staying in bed to read had become common enough. Complete privacy in
the bedroom, even privacy in bed, was still not easy to come by. Even if the family
was rich enough to have individual beds and bedrooms, social conventions
