...in the seven years since 1790, books intended to amuse rather than instruct had flooded the land. ' 'All orders of country life, with one accord, forsook...Pilgrim up the "hill of difficulty" or through the "slough of despond;" while Dolly, the dairy maid, and Jonathan, the hired man, threw aside the ballad...

...libraries and booksellers had filled the land with " modern travels and novels almost as incredible. . . . No sooner was a taste for amusing literature diffused,...worthy farmer no longer fatigued himself with Bunyan's Pilgrims up the hill of difficulty . . . but quaffed wine with Brydone in the hermitage of Vesuvius,...

...libraries and booksellers had filled the land with " modern travels and novels almost as incredible. . . . No sooner was a taste for amusing literature diffused,...worthy farmer no longer fatigued himself with Bunyan's Pilgrims up the hill of difficulty . . . but quaffed wine with Brydone in the hermitage of Vesuvius,...

...all orders of country life, with one accord, forsook the sober sermons and Practical Pieties of the fathers, for the gay stories and splendid impieties...Pilgrim up the ' hill of difficulty ' or through the ' slough of despond ' ; but quaffed wine with Brydone in the hermitage of Vesuvius, sported with Bruce...

...all orders of country life, with one accord, forsook the sober sermons and Practical Pieties of the fathers, for the gay stories and splendid impieties of the Traveller and the Novelist. The worthy fanner no longer fatigued himself with Bunyan's Pilgrim up the ' hill of difficulty ' or through the...

...is half completed. In no other country are there so many people, who, in proportion to its numbers, can read and write; and, therefore, no sooner was...Pilgrim up the "hill of difficulty," or through the "slough of despond"; but quaffed wine with Brydone in the hermitage of Vesuvius, or sported with Bruce...

...social libraries had been instituted, composed of books designed to amuse rather than to instruct. . . . All orders of country life, with one accord, forsook...Pilgrim up 'the hill of difficulty' or through the 'slough of despond' but quaffed wine with Brydone in the hermitage of Vesuvius, or sported with Bruce...

...remarked in 1797 on the profusion of English reprints, complaining that his compatriots had forsaken "the sober sermons and practical pieties of their...for the gay stories and splendid impieties" of the foreign novelist. The vast majority of fictional narratives published and read in the United States...