Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet

An Autobiography

By the Rev. Charles Kingsley, Canon of Westminster, Rector of Eversley, and Chaplain In Ordinary to the Queen And Prince of Wales.

(1856)

Although reread nowadays mostly for its depiction of the Chartist uprising in 1848, Alton Locke is a book that is still valuable in the 21st century. Its direct and harsh criticism of a incredibly exploitative economic system and its blunt portrayals of the resulting horrible living and working conditions in an unregulated market based on Social-Darwinism present an unmistakable call to action by the mid-century Christian Socialist movement of which Kingsley was a leading part. Although the solutions the novel gives to these pressing problems seem mainly idealist, Charles Kingsley dares to face a problem that we today believe we have solved, although we have only outsourced it: the very real socio-economic hell of those on whose backs we manage to maintain our high living standards.--Submitted by Anonymous

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