Product Description

'The present system means joyless drudgery, semi-starvation, rags and premature death; and they vote for it and uphold it. Let them have what they vote for! Let them drudge and let them starve!' There is no other novel quite like The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. George Orwell called it 'a wonderful book'; its readers have become a living part of its remarkable history. Tressell's novel is about survival on the underside of the Edwardian Twilight, about exploitative employment when the only safety nets are charity, workhouse, and grave. Following the fortunes of a group of painters and decorators and their families, and the attempts to rouse their political will by the Socialist visionary Frank Owen, the book is both a highly entertaining story and a passionate appeal for a fairer way of life. It asks questions that are still being asked today: why do your wages bear no relation to the value of your work? Why do fat cats get richer when you don't? Tressell's answers are 'The Great Money Trick' and the 'philanthropy' of an unenlightened workforce, who give away their rights and aspirations to a decent life so freely. Intellectually enlightening, deeply moving and gloriously funny (complete with exploding clergyman), The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a book that changes lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5100 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 702 pages

Customer Reviews

A description of a journey through hell!
I first read the "Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" around 1947. It aroused such an interest in me that the story has remained fresh in my memory all of my life. I am now nearly 73 years old. It has been described as the first novel written by a working class person. The description of working class life in such a rich country is a permanent blot on the history of Great Britain. However Tressell writes with such humour that one minute you want to cry and the next explode with laughter. As a result of reading Tressell's book I became a Socialist. Nothing in my life has caused me to change my mind. The characters that Tressell described at the beginning of the twentieth century live on today. Read this book and I guarantee that your thinking will be radically affected. It was the only book that he ever wrote. Tragically, he never lived to see it published. Some people say that it won the election for the Labour Party immediately after the war.

Should be prescribed reading for all constrruction workers.
Although this book was written nearly 100 years ago, so much is still pertinent today. I have worked in the construction industry for 40 of those years and have met and worked with many of Tressel's characters. I have bought and given this book to several workmates in the hope that some of Tressel's humanity could be imparted and some of his dignity could be passed on. Construction is still a much under-valued occupation and its employees are if anything far more exploited now than at the turn of the last century. I am amazed so few builders have even heard of this book. I doubt one in a thousand or even one in ten thousand of those I've worked with have read it, or even know of its existence. Perhaps in another 100 years they might and perhaps they will not be so philanthropic. I wonder !

Painful reading....
This book hadhuge effect on me when I first read it and when I picked it up twelve years on the spell was unbroken. It is idiosycratic and parochial. Reading from the vantage point of the early twenty first century, ten years after the downfall and discrediation of the communist bloc in Europe, the politics may appear confused and dated. Yet it remains a powerful and angry indictment of the capitalist system. It exposes the shortfalls of our society's economic organisation in a clear and unambiguous manner. The story follows the misfortunes of a group of painters and decorators in the south of Edwardian England. They are poor, they are unhappy, they are exploited and they cling tightly to thier right to remain in this state. Alternatives to their predicament are scorned and the perpetrators of radical ideas are met with scorn and violence. Owen, the socialist among the group, never eschews an opportunity to press home the absurdity of his fellow workers views and rarley misses a chance to convert them to his cause. His failure to do this is a central theme of this book. It is a significant element that he views his colleagues with almost the same contempt as their capitalist masters: he labels them philanthropists, who give their labour and ultimately their lives so that their "betters" are albel to live in comfort at their expense. It is a painful analysis for those on the left of the modern political spectrum.