Reading list for ENGL33041 Writing Workers / Workers Writing

Reading List for Writing Workers/Workers Writing

 

Please note that some of the material for this course will only be available via Blackboard and/or in a course handbook at the start of the next academic year.  However, the following primary texts are widely available;

 

Thomas Carlyle, Chartism, (1839) [often available in selections of Carlyle's writings]

Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil (1845)*

Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, (1843)*

Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton, (1848)*

..--, North and South, (1854)*

Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke, (1850)

 

NB: Texts marked with an asterisk (*) are available in the Oxford World's Classics series and I strongly advise students to buy these editions.

In terms of secondary reading, you will find it helpful to have an understanding of the general historical context from 1830 to 1860.  J.F.C. Harrison's Early Victorian Britain, 1832-1851, provides a good overview, and can be usefully supplemented by K. Theodore Hoppen's The Mid-Victorian Generation (1998).  I have annotated the longer secondary reading list (where appropriate) to assist you in deciding what to read.  

 

Secondary:

M. Chase, Chartism: A New History (2007) [A lengthy but indispensable study for any

            student seriously considering about writing on Chartism]

C. Gallagher, The Industrial Reformation of English Fiction (1985) [Theoretically

            challenging but very important reconsideration of the 'industrial novel']

R. Gray, The Factory Question and Industrial England, 1830-1860 (1996)

J. Guy, The Victorian Social-Problem Novel (1996) [Provides a useful overview of the genre]

I. Haywood, The Revolution in Print (2006) [A ground-breaking study of the radical and

            working-class press]

M. Hewitt, The Emergence of Stability in the Industrial City: Manchester 1832-67 (1996)

A. Janowitz, Lyric & Labor in the Romantic Tradition (1998) [Pioneering study which

            examines the relationship of working-class poetry and Romanticism]

M. Jenkins, The General Strike of 1842 (1980)

P. Joyce, Democratic Subjects (1994) [Controversial post-structuralist/post-Marxist challenge

            to the concept of social class]

P.J. Keating, The Working Classes in Victorian fiction (1971)

I. Kovacevic, Fact into Fiction: English Literature and the industrial scene 1750-1850 (1975)

A. Krishnamurthy, The Working-Class Intellectual in C18th & C19th Britain (2009)

B. Maidment ed., The Poorhouse Fugitives (1987) [A pioneering anthology with richly

            suggestive introductory essays]

J. Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (2001)

E. Royle, Chartism (1986)

M. Sanders, The Poetry of Chartism (2009)

E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (1963) [An exemplary 'history

            from below' text.  Read in full if you've time, sample if you haven't]

M. Vicinus, The Industrial Muse (1974)

D. Vincent, Bread, Knowledge & Freedom (1981) [Pioneering study of working-class

            autobiography]

S. Zlotnick, Women Writing & the Industrial Revolution (1998)