After the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, literacy rates in England had began to go up, and at least learning basic reading and writing skills became something for rather than specific to males from wealth and nobility. In fact, by the 1840s, about 65 to 70% of people had achieved at least minimal access to writing before public education. However, literacy was still restricted by class, and since writing was viewed as another way for the working class to have a voice, lower class writers were viewed as novelty as best, which can be seen as evidence from the brief "celebrity treatment of John Clare in the 1820s, who was often considered a "novelty poet".