In the late nineteenth century hundreds of clubs formed across the United States devoted to the reading of Shakespeare. Katherine West Scheil uncovers this hidden layer of intellectual activity that flourished in American society.

Katherine West Scheil is Associate Professor of English at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of The Taste of the Town: Shakespearian Comedy and the Early Eighteenth-Century Theater and coeditor of Shakespeare/Adaptation/Modern Drama.

Scheil offers a fascinating study of American communities of women (1880s–1940s) who read Shakespeare. She has uncovered previously neglected historical records, exploring the origins of these clubs (including those of black women), their range of literary practices, their effects on domestic life, and their outreaches from urban to isolated rural areas.... Using direct quotes from some of the women involved, Scheil follows the lives ofthese club members and reveals how their readings also translated into 'civic, cultural, and educational improvement.'.

Katherine Fredlund:

In She Hath Been Reading, Scheil exhaustively chronicles the existence and practices of women's Shakespeare clubs in the United States. Her book also presents an alternate narrative of literacy and American life beginning in the late nineteenth and continuing into the twentieth century.... Thus Scheil’s book makes the convincing and valuable argument that Shakespeare was a driving force in the formation of American culture at this time.

Andrew Murphy, University of St Andrews, author of Shakespeare for the People: Working-Class Readers, 1800–1900:

She Hath Been Reading is an impressive and very well-researched book that brings to light a vast archive of new material that has never been used in such an extensive way by Shakespeareans. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the reception of Shakespeare's work.