Today’s guest post is by Jane Davis, one of my favourite contemporary authors.
Jane is the author of character-driven historical and contemporary fiction that bridges meticulous research with compelling emotionally-rich storytelling. Her novels explore subjects ranging from the life of a pioneering female photographer to families searching for justice after a devastating disaster.
Her next book is ‘The Temple of the Muses’, featuring the Lackingtons, an exceptional pair of London booksellers. Being a reader before the invention of electric light took dedication, as Jane explains–
This is Part One – the importance of light – Part Two follows next week.
“Could not do much today, my eyes were so very tired, particularly the right. I have read too much by candlelight lately and neither managed day nor candlelight properly.”
— Anne Lister, 1818
Let There Be (Very Little) Light
A well-lit 18th-century room was dim by modern standards. This became abundantly clear when I visited Dennis Severs’ house in Folgate Street, Spitalfields. Free of most modern lighting, it relies on a combination of guttering candlelight and flicking firelight to create an authentic impression of what life might have been like for its occupants, a family of Huguenot silk weavers.
The basement kitchen – approached by a steep staircase – appeared to be pitch black to my modern eyes. And that was by day. After sunset the difference would have been stark. A typical 60w lightbulb is the equivalent of 50 – 70 candles, but many households used only one light source per room: the hearth, a single candle, or perhaps an oil lamp for the fortunate.
But a host of surviving diaries, letters, and household records tells us that people didn’t retire for the night when the sun went down.
James Lackington tells us in his Memoirs of the Forty-five First Years that his days as an apprentice shoemaker were long.
“In the winter I was obliged to attend my work from six in the morning until ten at night. In the summer half year, I only worked as long as we could see without candle.”
When people weren’t about their work, and sometimes when they were, they exchanged gossip, told stories—and as literacy increased, they read.
James Lackington wrote of Dorcas:
“I knew that she was immoderately fond of books and would frequently read until morning.”
The English Caravaggio: Night Skies, Lunar Cycles and Human Ingenuity
Time and time again while writing The Bookseller’s Wife and The Temple of the Muses I turned to literature and art. Jane Austen uses candlelight to signal intimacy, secrecy, wealth, neglect, or emotional exposure. But there is one artist who turned the single flame into a metaphor for Enlightenment itself—knowledge lighting the way in the darkness.
Joseph Wright of Derby – often called the English Caravaggio – captured the candlelit world of the 18th century like no other artist. Having studied his epic paintings on-line, an exhibition of his at work at the National Gallery (on until 10 May 2026) provided an opportunity to see them ‘in the flesh’, and the detail is extraordinary.
Most of his paintings show a single source of light, hidden from the onlooker. They remind us that, even at its best, candlelight illuminated a small circle, not an entire room. He painted scientists conducting experiments and wondering at the solar system with a lamp replacing the sun, young artists at an academy, boys fighting, blacksmiths about their work, alchemists. He shows us how the need to share light brought people close together – sometimes uncomfortably close. He accentuates the curves and hollows of his sitters’ faces and makes the page of the letter they are reading transparent.
He gives us reflections of flames in glassy eyes, gilded cheekbones, glances between lovers who think they are hidden in the shadows. The edges of his paintings are always velvety black.
But there is usually a secondary source of light – the full moon. A reminder that Wright himself was part of a group of innovative thinkers who called themselves the Lunar Society. Moonlight mattered greatly. People planned activities around lunar cycles, arranging to meet at full moon, when it was safer to walk through unlit streets. James Lackington often boasted that he could read by the light of the moon.
Beyond Sunset: Making Use of Every Last Glimmer
Beeswax candles burned more cleanly and brightly but were expensive. Households employed ingenuity to eke out light according to their means. Wealthier householders could afford to make the most of natural light by having spacious windows. They might be able to afford to light a number of candles when entertaining, but they used polished brass or silver candlesticks to reflect light; placed mirrors behind flames to double their reach. Girandoles glittered with glass drops scattered brightness across a room.
Little wonder that Jane Austen uses the presence (or absence) of candles to communicate the rank and financial status of her characters. In Emma, when they have supper at the ball, Mrs. Bates says, “I never saw anything equal to the comfort and style—Candles everywhere.”
In his memoirs, James Lacking bemoaned how his mistress rationed light.
“I knew most of the letters, and a few easy words, and I set about learning with all my might. My mistress would sometimes instruct me; and having three halfpence per week allowed me by my mother, this money I gave to John (my master’s youngest son) and for every three-halfpence he taught me to spell one hour; this was done in the dark, as we were not allowed a candle after we were sent upstairs to bed.”
A Fragile Light: Burning Eyes, and Trembling Letters
Light was not only precious, it was unstable. This could be used to good advantage. An 18th century visitor to a wealthy household described how lanterns placed next to a marble statute appeared to animate it. But a careless movement, a passing draft, or an open door could also extinguish a flame, plunging a room into darkness.
To read by candlelight was a physical act. Readers leaned forward, craned their necks, narrowed their eyes. Flames danced and wavered constantly, so the letters themselves seemed to tremble.
Unsurprisingly, eye strain was a common complaint.
The poet John Milton lost his sight gradually and was completely blind by age 41, believing firmly that his habit of reading by candlelight was the chief culprit – along with divine punishment. He later wrote, “the choice lay before me between dereliction of a supreme duty and loss of eyesight; in such a case I could not listen to the physician…”
But there was far more than eyesight at stake. Part Two concerns fire, fear, candles and communities.
The Temple of the Muses will be released on 2 March 2026 (ebook) and 2 April 2026 (paperback).
Universal Link: books2read.com/thetempleofthemuses