Tissot was born in Nantes, a thriving port on the River Loire and trained in Paris at the studio of Louis Lamothe, a pupil of Ingres. He arrived in London, having escaped with only a hundred francs in his pocket. His friend whom he had met during the Siege of Paris, Thomas Gibson Bowles, the editor of the magazine Vanity Fair, housed him and employed him to draw twenty-two caricatures for the publication. 
In Paris, Tissot's chosen subject matter appealed to the emerging class of new art patrons, who were uneducated in the historical and literary subjects that inspired the Salon painters. In London, his exposure in Vanity Fair had brought him to the attention of British society, whom he began to portray in dramatic scenes of fashionable opulence. Sales to them ensured his success. By the time he sent his first works to the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1872 he was recognised as the most glamorous painter in London.

The intimate scale of Reading a Book suggests that the painting was intended for direct sale to a private collector rather than as an exhibition show-piece. Certainly the light-hearted theme is far removed from the strongly academic works shown by artists exhibiting at the Royal Academy. The eccentric focal point is the sitter's flamboyant bonnet, lit contre-jour by sunlight flooding through the window.