By Jane Davis
James Lackington bemoaned in his memoirs, “my master would never permit me to take a candle into my room, and that prohibition I looked upon as a kind of persecution.”
His master’s objections may not have stemmed simply from concern about the expense (although that would certainly have entered his mind) or the mess it would create. Accidental contact with a naked flame could ignite a billowing sleeve or a child’s pinafore. Anything to which a candle was brought near, be it a muslin curtain at a window, or rags or paper in a closet, might go up in flames. Neglected candles could set bed-curtains ablaze and in turn risk the loss of property or even life.
In April 1789, The Lady Magazine warned: “Some people complain much of want of time during the day endeavour to make up reading by reading in bed at night – the insurance officers against Fire are not much pleased with this mode.”
With good reason. In 1831, The Family Monitor reported on the death of Lord and Lady Walsingham.
“How repeatedly do we hear of fires in consequence of persons reading in bed. There are few in the habit of doing so who could not relate some narrow escape. It is little less than tempting God to sport with the most awful danger and calamity which can affect ourselves and others.”
According to The Spectator, Lord Walsingham’s servants found him “burnt to a crisp,” continuing, “his remains [were] almost wholly destroyed, the hands and feet literally burnt to ashes.” I will spare you all the gory details. His wife was no less fortunate. In an attempt to escape the blaze she jumped out of the window and fell to her death. The incident became a cautionary tale.
And the dangers were not limited to reading in bed, but reading alone.
On March 1, 1801, Bell’s Weekly Messenger carried a report of the tragic fate of Lady Hardy:
“Sitting alone after dinner reading, but falling asleep, her head dress approached too near the flame of the candle, and caught fire; it communicated to other parts of her dress before her Ladyship awoke.
On awaking, and perceiving her situation, she inadvertently ran out into the passage, where the draught of air so much increased the flames, that she was found entirely in a blaze…”
Candlelight and Community: Families, Neighbours, and Shared Stories
Given these conditions and risks, solitary reading was often impractical. Candlelight did more than illuminate text; it drew people together both physically and socially. Family members did not have the luxury of scattering to separate rooms. Light was too scarce, too costly, too labour-intensive to be used wastefully. Families gathered where the light was best: around the hearth, the table, the halo of a single candle.
Jane Austen writes in one of her letters to Cassandra:
“We have got the second volume of Espriella’s Letters, and I read it aloud by candle-light.”
Eighteenth-century reading became a communal experience. In The Social Life of Books, Professor Abigail Williams describes reading as ‘a spectator sport.’ Far from disappearing as literacy increased, reading aloud flourished, not just for self-improvement, but as entertainment. Parents read to children, siblings read to siblings, and neighbours gathered to hear the latest news or a favourite passage. Reading well was a valued social skill.
James Lackington wrote in his memoirs that Dorcas’s love of books was one of the first things that recommended her to him.
“I was in raptures with the bare thoughts of having a woman to read with, and also to read to me.”
This was “the great age of elocution”, in which people from all backgrounds had “a near obsession with learning to read aloud”. Elocution manuals instructed readers how to gesture, pause, emote—to make the most of the limited light by animating the words. Sermons and rousing speeches, plays, novels, travel narratives, assembled quotations, and popular science were read aloud in the evenings.
Candlelight and Community: Families, Neighbours, and Shared Stories
Communal reading solved multiple problems. It conserved light, reduced eye strain and allowed others to sew, mend, sharpen tools, or shell peas while listening. It brought literature to those who had not mastered reading and allowed one book to be shared among many.
Several sources of literary lore describe how a local blacksmith read Richardson’s Pamela to an entire village during the long evenings of summer.
When the plot reached its happy romantic ending — with the hero and heroine united — the assembled listeners were so delighted, they procured the keys to the church and rang the bells in celebration.
What We Have Lost—and Gained
The advent of gas and electric lighting brought extraordinary freedom—but it also quietly reshaped reading into a solitary act. The change did not come overnight, but gradually.
As late as 1861, Harriet Martineauit wrote:
“The candle, with all its barbarism, its grease, its snuff, its waste, its clumsiness, and its dangerousness, has kept its place with a pertinacity which future generations will wonder at.”
18th-century readers knew something we often forget: reading could knit people together. Perhaps that is why, even now, we keep returning to book groups, shared readings, quotations passed hand to hand. In our glowing rooms, we are still seeking what candlelight once enforced: the pleasure of reading together, in company, at the edge of darkness.
The Temple of the Muses (ebook) is available now. Paperback comes out on 2 April 2026.
Universal Link: books2read.com/thetempleofthemuses
1 Response to "When reading becomes dangerous: Fire, Fear and Fatal Accidents – Part Two"
What a fascinating piece! I loved the part about reading being a social activity. When I was at uni my boyfriend and I used to read our American literature books aloud to each other. I did much better in my Am Lit paper than in Eng Lit. I think somehow it stuck more than it would have done as a solitary exercise!