Check out the full streaming history below and click ‘Notify Me’ to get notified when it’s available to stream again. Because successful reentry begins not only with access to opportunity, but with a transformed mind prepared to embrace it. In this Mini English Lesson, Shereen helps you get better at ‘reading between the lines’ — understanding what’s not being said in English conversations. This can be tricky for English learners, especially when people don’t say things directly and expect you to understand the hidden meaning. Reading Between the Lines® empowers incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals through literature and thought-provoking dialogue that develops critical thinking, communication, and self-reflection to assist successful reentry. From award-winning author Rachel Lacey comes a playful romance about a Manhattan bookstore owner and a reclusive author who love to hate–and hate to love–each other.
- Talking about the tight, loaded style of Tacitus, the reviewer said the historian is so rich in ideas that almost every sentence “claims a thorough illustration, or, as an admirer of Tacitus expressed himself very appropriate, ‘much is to be read between the lines.’” That sentence is already figurative.
- This can be tricky for English learners, especially when people don’t say things directly and expect you to understand the hidden meaning.
- Once that picture was familiar, the phrase was ready to travel beyond actual secret letters.
- If the first print use is a comment on Tacitus, the scholarly-note explanation looks stronger.
A few years later, in 1866, the British philosopher James Martineau wrote in Essays Philosophical and Theological, “No writer was ever more read between the lines.” That line later became a favorite early citation, even though the Philadelphia review of 1829 was already more than thirty years older. There is no scandal here, only a small argument about dates. Popular accounts often place the phrase in the mid-1800s and treat the 1862 newspaper piece, or Martineau’s 1866 sentence, as the beginning.
The older practices behind it, secret writing and notes between the lines, were European habits. By the late nineteenth century the phrase no longer needed paper at all. People used it of spoken remarks, official silence, and the mood of a room.
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The shorter form “between the lines” was already in circulation by the mid-nineteenth century as a way of naming implication itself. Between the Lines is unavailable to stream in United States today. The last time it was streaming was on Plex Player, Plex Channel until May 2025.
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That matters because it changes the flavor of the origin. If the first print use is a comment on Tacitus, the scholarly-note explanation looks stronger. If later diplomatic uses are treated as the start, the code-and-ink explanation looks stronger. Nobody has found a document that says, in so many words, “this phrase was coined from invisible ink” or “this phrase was coined from interlinear notes.” The fair conclusion is that English borrowed an image already familiar from both practices and then let the figurative sense take over. The wording first turns up in print in the United States.
A harmless letter would be written in ordinary ink, while the real words sat in the gaps between those lines, often in invisible ink that showed up when the paper was warmed over a candle. Another version says some codes put the true sense on every second line, so a casual reader saw one story and a careful reader saw another. In both cases, reading meant knowing that the important part might live in the spaces other people skipped. Once that picture was familiar, the phrase was ready to travel beyond actual secret letters. On 27 August 1862, The New York Times used it of a dispatch from the British foreign secretary, Earl Russell, during the American Civil War.
In December 1829, The American Quarterly Review, published in Philadelphia, reviewed A Grammar of the Latin Language, for the Use of Colleges and Seminaries. Talking about the tight, loaded style of Tacitus, the reviewer said the historian is so rich in ideas that almost every sentence “claims a thorough illustration, or, as an admirer of Tacitus expressed himself very appropriate, ‘much is to be read between the lines.’” That sentence is already figurative. It is about a writer whose real thought sits just off the page. So far, that American review is the earliest securely dated record of the full idiom. On present evidence, the wording first appeared in American print, in Philadelphia, and then moved easily through both American and British English.
To add read between the lines to a word list please sign up or log in. Sheila and Secretmeet overview Danielle are best friends at an ordinary high school, until conflicts arise…
This lesson will help you feel more confident in everyday English, worry less about misunderstandings, and understand what people really mean — not just what they say. His best friend Ann is the only one to know about his love for writing – until one day, when Teru finds strange messages from a mysterious person in the form of a movie script… Through the power of literature and meaningful dialogue, Reading Between the Lines® is transforming how incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals think, communicate, and envision their futures. The following snapshot highlights the growing reach and impact of our work.