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THE RAGGED TROUSERED PHILANTHROPISTS

Price: £9.00
ISBN 13: 
978 0 00 788152 9
Number of pages: 
590
First published: 
1914
This edition: 
2005
Blurb: 

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists tells the story of a group of working men who are joined one day by Owen, a journeyman-prophet with a vision of a just society. Owen's spirited attacks on the greed and dishonesty of the capitalist system rouse his fellow men from their political quietism. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is both a masterpiece of wit and political passion and one of the most authentic novels of English working class life ever written.

Publisher's note:

Robert Tressell's original MS was 'edited' and 're-edited' at various times. This complete edition presents the work in almost its original form (it has been necessary to retain some editorial paraphrases where the original text is lost beyond trace: such paraphrases are enclosed within square brackets). Tressell's idiosyncratic grammar, spelling and punctuation (his way of conveying the spoken idiom of his characters), as well as his somewhat inconsistent use of capital letters, has been restored.

Contents: 

Introduction -- Alan Sillitoe, December 1964
Introduction -- Gary Day, November 1996
   Life
   Class, Revolution and Resistance
   The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists as Literature
   The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and the English Novel Tradition
   The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and Modernism
   Conclusion
   Endnotes

      Author's Preface 
  1. An Imperial Banquet. A Philosophical Discussion. The Mysterious Stranger. Britons Never shall be Slaves.
  2. Nimrod: a Mighty Hunter before the Lord
  3. The Financiers
  4. The Placard
  5. The Clock-case
  6. It is not My Crime
  7. The Exterminating Machines
  8. The Cap on the Stairs
  9. Who is to Pay?
10. The Long Hill
11. Hands and Brains
12. The Letting of the Room
13. Penal Servitude and Death
14. Three Children. The Wages of Intelligence.
15. The Undeserving Persons and the Upper and Nether Millstones.
16. True Freedom
17. The Rev. John Starr
18. The Lodger
19. The Filling of the Tank
20. The Forty Theives. The Battle: Brigands versus Bandits
21. The Reign of Terror. The Great Money Trick
22. The Phrenologist
23. The 'Open-air'
24. Ruth
25. The Oblong
26. The Slaughter
27. The March of the Imperialists
28. The Week before Christmas
29. The Pandorama
30. The Brigands hold a Council of War
31. The Deserter
32. The Veteran
33. The Soldier's Children
34. The Beginning of the End
35. Facing the 'Problem'
36. The OBS
37. A Brilliant Epigram
38. The Brigands' Cave
39. The Brigands at Work
40. Vive la System!
41. The Easter Offering. The Beano Meeting.
42. June
43. The Good Old Summer-time
44. The Beano
45. The Great Oration
46. The 'Sixty-five'
47. The Ghouls
48. The Wise men of the East
49. The Undesired
50. Sundered
51. The Widow's Son
52. 'It's a Far, Far Better Thing that I do, than I have Ever Done'
53. Barrington Finds a Situation
54. The End
      Appendix: Mugsborough

Select Bibliography
   Books
   Articles

Biographical note(s): 

Robert Tressell was the pseudonym of Robert Noonan, an Irish house-painter, who came to England from South Africa at the turn of the century. With his daughter Kathleen and his sister Adelaide, he settled in Hastings, where he worked as a signwriter for various building firms. Tressell played a large part in local politics, joining the Social Democratic Federation (one of the forerunners of the Labour Party), and was often to be seen preaching the word from a soapbox on Hastings beach. His experience of English working life and his subsequent political awakening were to provide the material for The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, his one and only novel. Tressell intended the book to be a 'socialist documentary' based on real people and real events, a work which he hoped would convert his fellow workers to the creed. However, tressell never lived to see his book in print: his manuscript was rejected by several publishers and, dispirited and disillusioned, he decided to emigrate to Canada in 1910. Unfortunately, tressell was taken ill en route in Liverpool and died from TB the following year, aged forty. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists was published three years later.

Quotes about: 

'The first great English novel about the class war, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is spiked, witty, humorous, instructive and full of excitement. harmony and pathos' -- Alan Sillitoe

'Some books seem to batter their way to immortality against all the odds, by sheer brute artistic strength, and high up in this curious and honourable company must be counted The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Robert Tressell's unfailing humour mixes with an unfailing rage and the two together make a truly Swiftian impact' -- Michael Foot, Evening Standard

'A brilliant and very funny book.' -- Spectator

'A torch to pass from generation to generation' -- Tony Benn