The title basically.
Since the way society thinks and what’s acceptable as moral compass has itself changed between then and now, some differences in value systems will be obvious. But the difference is lot more than that and can’t just be explained by difference in value systems.
For one, I somehow feel that reading was probably considered and much “leisurely” or “luxurious” affair then, the authors usually took their own sweet time talking about the periphery and the mundane before coming to the point. But in the age of computers, they get straight to the point in first few pages where emotions start getting jumpy!
Another difference is perhaps the grammar and writing style. At least in developing countries, literary pursuits like reading and writing was the domain of handful of elites who either had the blessings of colonists or were the colonists themselves. And once they started achieving independence around the end of WW2, education started getting democratized and one effect of that was that the English language was no longer as “pure” (or “Latinish”?) as it used to be earlier.
by pyeri