The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell

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Originally Posted by kev67

State pension, yes. I am pretty sure Lloyd George introduced this before Ragged Trousers was published...

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I was previously under the impression that a proper state pension only came in with the Attlee government after WWII, and after a quick trawl through Wikipedia I'm still under that impression! There was some provision pre-Ragged Trousers, but I don't think it would have been enough to assuage the worries of the older characters presented in Ragged Trousers.

Any other recommendations for novels that present the Socialist cause in an inspiring light? I've just finished Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, and his hero is a believable socialist, who is prepared to give his life for the cause. But Hemingway doesn't shy away from presenting the idiocy and excessive violence of some of the hero's comrades. It's a very thought provoking book on the problems and pitfalls of putting idealism into practice. It's also a very exciting war story. Makes me feel he deserved his Nobel prize.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

Any other recommendations for novels that present the Socialist cause in an inspiring light? I've just finished Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, and his hero is a believable socialist, who is prepared to give his life for the cause. But Hemingway doesn't shy away from presenting the idiocy and excessive violence of some of the hero's comrades. It's a very thought provoking book on the problems and pitfalls of putting idealism into practice. It's also a very exciting war story. Makes me feel he deserved his Nobel prize.

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We read For Whom the Bell Tolls in the book club. I was not very struck with the Socialist aspect to it. It was pretty grisly in places. I recently read A Moment of War by Laurie Lee in which he relates his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. The book is quite controversial because some readers think he was lying. I wouldn't say Laurie Lee was any great political radical, more an adventurer.

It is a problem that historically (maybe even today) that working class people just did not write much. Currently I am reading Humphrey Clinker written in the late 18th century. To read that, you would think Britain was largely composed of gentry, going on extended trips to Bath and London, attending the opera and visiting exhibitions. You get little impression of how harsh life must have been for the majority of the population. In Humphry Clinker, several of the letters were written by a female servant. They are full of spelling mistakes. I doubt a working class author could have been taken seriously by any publisher. They would have need a sponsor.

I have just finished reading about H.G. Wells. He was from a working class background. His father was a professional cricketer and his mother was a domestic servant. H.G. Wells started out as a draper's assisant, but escaped. His views were generally Socialist, although he also believed in eugenics.

I have read somewhere that Jack London was from a woking class background and a socialist too. He wrote a dystopian book called The Iron Heel, which apparently converted Alexei Sayle's father to Communism. I read a book of his called The People of the Abyss, which was a report into the living conditions of the working class living in the East End of London.

Somebody in this thread asked about other novels that present socialism in an inspiring manner. I suggest two books, long out of print, but possibly available on Amazon. The books are "We Live" & "Cwmardy" by Lewis Jones. He was an active socialist in wales during the Depression. He died tragically young after haven spoken at thirty meetings in a single day in support of international opposition to Franco`s fascist takeover in Spain.

I have been reading How Green Is My Valley, which I am not really enjoying very much. I don't really like narrator, Huw Morgan, and his family of arrogant, violent ****s. However, I was struck by the difference in living standards between the Welsh coal miners of 1897 and painter-decorators living in south-east England about 1910. The miners seemed to have plenty of money. It probably helped that the narrator's family included several grown up sons, all drawing a wage. The work seemed pretty regular, until they went on strike. It didn't stop them being unhappy about pay, but they were a lot better off than many. They had plenty of food. All the children in the family reached adulthood. They even had the money to order a tailored suit for a boy who would soon grow out of it. I am not sure how well Richard Llewelyn knew for sure about the economic living standards of Welsh miners. I think I read on Wikipedia that he gathered his information from talking to Welash miners.

Try The Road to Wigan Pier.

I currently reading London Labour and London Poor by Henry Mayhew, which is huge work of social research during the 1850's. I believe it was originally published as a magazine. While The Condition of the Working Class in England by Friedrich Engels reminded me of Mary Barton and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, London Labour and London Poor reminds me very much of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, even though the Philanthropists was written about fifty years later. Mayhew discussed how the common practice of hiring casual labour caused great poverty. He discusses the various means used to create overwork yet underemployment and underpay. Unskilled and cheap workers were used to supplant skilled workers, while the work was rushed and scamped . Robert Owen in the Philanthropists complains about the poor standard of work that he, a trained craftsman, has to rush out, in addition to the over-work, periods of unemployment, poverty and fear he and his colleagues have to endure.