Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1913 — STORIES THAT ARE POPULAR [ARTICLE]

STORIES THAT ARE POPULAR

English Serial Writers Bay One Class Prefers to Read the Chronicles of Another. — Do persons of limited means like reading stories about the rich better than those about persons no better off than themselves? The question is raised by a correspondent who writes from Winchelsea. “Many thousands of your readers would be glad,” he says, “if you could bring out a serial about ordinary middle class people by way of a change from the eternal scenes among aristocrats with no interest in life except sport and flirtation. After all, such persons must -be rare, even among your own readers, and it would be delightful to read about life in our own class. And let the characters live in some other town than London, say Leicester, or Birmingham, and dine, not ‘lunch,’ at noon.” Some wisely known serial writers were asked their opinions on the matter, with the following result: Mrs. Yorke Miller: “Perhaps the poor serial writers do like best to write about people with plenty of money, letting their mind dwell upon the things they desire and have not got. But I am inclined to think that most readers who dine in the middle of the day are like that, and most enjoy reading about people with motor cars who dine at smart restaurants.” Heath Hosken: “Really popular serials give both sides of life. Readers are extremely critical of descriptions of their own manner of life, and the more realistic it is the more likely they are to resent it.” Miss L. Mitchell, secretary of the Writers’ club: “I think that, on the whole, people enjoy most reading about a class of life different from any they have ever known." The question is: Are the Berlal writers mistaken in thinking that people do prefer to read about the rich and prosperous?—London Mirror.