The intellectual life of the British working classes
By: Jonathan Rose.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: New Haven, CT
Language: eng
Number of pages: 534
Subjects: Working class -- Books and reading -- Great Britain -- History.; Working class -- Great Britain -- Intellectual life.; Books and reading -- Great Britain -- History.; Great Britain -- Intellectual life.
Description: "Which books did the British working classes read - and how did they read them? How did they respond to canonical authors, penny dreadfuls, classical music, school stories, Shakespeare, Marx, Hollywood movies, imperialist propaganda, the Bible, the BBC, the Bloomsbury Group? What was the quality of their classroom education, as they experienced it? How did they educate themselves?

What was their level of cultural literacy: how much did they know about politics, science, history, philosophy, poetry, and sexuality? Who were the proletarian intellectuals, and why did they pursue the life of the mind?".

"These intriguing questions - which until recently historians considered unanswerable - are addressed in The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes. Using innovative research techniques and a vast range of unexpected sources this book tracks the rise and decline of the British autodidact from the pre-industrial era to the twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
"Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund"--T.p. verso.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Chapter One A Desire for Singularity 12; title: Scottish Overture I 16 The Milkmaid's Iliad 18; title: Knowledge and Power 20 Literature and Dogma 29; title: Conservative Authors and Radical Readers 39; title: The Craftsman's Tools 48; title: Chapter Two Mutual Improvement 58; title: Scottish Overture II 59 Self-Culture 62; title: Proletarian Science 70 How They Got On 73; title: Chekhov in Canning Town 79 A Common Culture? 83; title: Chapter Three The Difference Between Fact and Fiction 92; title: Cinderella as Documentary 93 Audience Participation 98; title: Blood, Iron, and Scripture 102 New Crusoes 106; title: Pickwickian Realism 111; title: Chapter Four A Conservative Canon 116; title: A General Theory of Rubbish 120 The People's Bard 122; title: The Hundred Best Books 125 Everyman's Library 131; title: Catching Up 136; title: Chapter Five Willingly to School 146; title: A Better-Than-Nothing Institute 151; title: Possibilities of Infinitude 156 Strict but Just 168; title: Parental Support 172 Unmanly Education 177; title: Regrets and Discontents 182; title: Chapter Six Cultural Literacy in the Classic Slum 187; title: Sheffield 1918 190 Wagner and Hoot Gibson 196; title: Aristotle and Dr. Stopes 206 Current Affairs 220; title: The Right to Language 223; title: The Most Unlikely People Buy Books Now 230; title: Chapter Seven The Welsh Miners' Libraries 237; title: An Underground University 238; title: Marx, Jane Eyre, Tarzan 244; title: Decline and Fall 253; title: Chapter Eight The Whole Contention Concerning the Workers'; title: Educational Association 256; title: The Ruskin Rebellion 258 The Difficultyabout That 265; title: What Did the Students Want? 282 The Reward 292; title: Chapter Nine Alienation from Marxism 298; title: Evangelical Materalism 300 Have You Read Marx? 305; title: Unethical Socialism 307 Stalin Reads Thackeray 315; title: Chapter Ten The World Unvisited 321; title: Greyfriars' Children 322 Adolescent Propaganda 331; title: Marlborough and All That 335 A Map of the World 341; title: Building Jerusalem 350 To the West 353; title: Recessional 362; title: Chapter Eleven A Mongrel Library 365; title: The Function of Penny Dreadfuls 367; title: Poverty and Indiscrimination 371; title: Boys' Stories for Girls 379; title: The Dog That Was Down 381 Uses and Gratifications 386; title: Chapter Twelve What Was Leonard Bast Really Like? 393; title: Restricting Literacy 394; title: The Insubordination of the Clerks 401 The Bridge 413; title: By Office Boys for Office Boys 417 The Better Hole 421; title: Cultural Triage 431; title: Chapter Thirteen Down and Out in Bloomsbury 439; title: On the Fringe 439 Where is Bohemia? 447; title: Before the Youth Culture 453 What Went Wrong? 455; title: Notes 465; title: Index 518.