Jonathan Rose - The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes

THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE BRITISH WORKING CLASSES

Jonathan Rose was the founding president of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing and a founding coeditor of the journal Book History. He is Professor of History at Drew University. The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes is the winner of, among others: the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Prize; the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, Book History Prize; and the American Philosophical Societys Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History for 2001.

Further praise for The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes:

Pioneering ... provides the basis, not only for further historical research, but also for examining many of the contemporary educational and cultural issues which Rose addresses. Alan Morrison, History Today

Startling ... By combing 200 years of unexplored memoirs and surveys of the lower classes, Rose shows that there was a time when the most elite and difficult works of the Western tradition inspired neither snobbery nor shame. Edward Rothstein, New York Times

Using a range of sources, from memoirs to library registers and archives, Rose has created a portrait of working-class self-education that is humbling and unforgettable. Nick Rennison, Sunday Times

Brilliantly readable ... Exposes the lie behind the word elitism the patronising notion that works of great literature, art or music are irrelevant to the lives of ordinary people. Daily Mail (Books of the Year)

Its hard not to be awed by this heroic pursuit of learning ... Rose has written a work of staggering ambition whose real aim is to rehabilitate the democratic idea that that the best of culture is for everyone. Daniel Akst, Wall Street Journal

A historical triumph ... Fascinatingly and passionately told. A.C. Grayling, Independent on Sunday

Fascinating reading. Stefan Collini, London Review of Books

Sharply original ... Rose rediscovers a tradition of self-education which recent academic cultural criticism has tended to devalue. The Economist

Roses splendid book on the British working classes intellectual life makes a magisterial contribution to educational history. David Levine, Journal of Social History

This is an incomparable book: scholarly to a scruple; majestic in its 100-year reach; ardent in its reaffirmation of faith and what good books, splendid music and fine art may do to turn a peoples history into a long revolution on behalf of liberty, equality and truth. Fred Inglis, Independent

This fascinating book will undoubtedly become the standard work on the subject. Phillip McCann, History of Education

This book is a treasure chest, and deserves pride of place in any decent ideological library. The Oldie

Copyright 2001 by Jonathan Rose

Introduction to the third edition copyright 2021 by Jonathan Rose

First published in paperback as a Yale Nota Bene book in 2002

Second edition published in paperback in 2010

Third edition published in paperback in 2021

Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund.

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

A Conservative Canon: Cultural Lag in British Working-Class Reading Habits, from Libraries and Culture 33:1, pp. 98104. Copyright by the University of Texas Press. All rights reserved.

Willingly to School: The Working-Class Response to Elementary Education in Britain, 18751918, from Journal of British Studies, 32:2, pp. 11438, published by the University of Chicago Press. 1993 by the North American Conference on British Studies. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-0-300-08886-1 (hbk)

ISBN 978-0-300-09808-2 (pbk)

ISBN 978-0-300-15365-1 (2nd edn pbk)

ISBN 978-0-300-25784-7 (3rd edn pbk)

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Contents

Tables

Acknowledgements

A small army of librarians, archivists, and public record office workers assisted me with my research. Special thanks are due to John Burnett, who generously gave me access to his collection of unpublished working-class autobiographies at Brunel University Library; and to the British Library, the New York Public Library, and the London office of the Workers Educational Association, where most of my research was done. I owe a similar debt of gratitude to Paul Thompson and his coworkers at the Sociology Department of the University of Essex. They conducted the massive oral history project on family, work, and community life before 1918, which is the basis of Thompsons book The Edwardians (1975). My Chapter Five sifts, analyzes, and quantifies the interviews they collected, though my conclusions are not necessarily theirs.

Bill Bell, John Burnett, Sondra Miley Cooney, Anne Humpherys, Gerhard Joseph, Robert L. Patten, John Rodden, and David Vincent all slogged through the manuscript, and their comments did much to improve it. I must thank all my friends in the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, who together provided an education in the social history of literature. The National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the British Institute of the United States, the American Historical Association, and Drew University provided the time and the money needed to complete this project. Earlier versions of sections of this book were published in the Journal of the History of Ideas, Libraries and Culture, the Journal of British Studies, Albion, and Biblion, and I am grateful to their editors for allowing me to rework that material in this volume.

Permission to quote or cite unpublished documents was generously granted by the Bishopsgate Institute, the BBC Written Archives Centre, the British Library, the British Library of Political and Economic Science, the Brunel University Library, the Buckinghamshire County Record Office, the University of Edinburgh Library, the County Record Office Huntingdon, the Imperial War Museum, Keele University, Elizabeth Kirtland, Terence A. Lockett, the University of London Library, the Marx Memorial Library (London), the Mitchell Library, the National Library of Scotland, the Labour History Archive and Study Centre at the National Museum of Labour History, the Newcastle Central Library, the Newport Central Library, the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Oxford University Archives (Bodleian Library), the Rotherham Central Library Archives and Local Studies Section, the Ruskin College Library, the Sheffield Local Studies Library, the South Wales Miners Library, the Southwark Local Studies Library, the Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich), and the Waltham Forest Local Studies Library. A few of my attempts to contact copyright holders were unsuccessful, so I take this opportunity to thank them, wherever they may be.