At its height, during the 1830s and 40s, Chartism inspired a prodigious literary output, based on its own newspapers and journals. While some Chartist political writings have been reprinted, the fiction of the movement has been largely neglected. Chartist stories represent a unique moment in literary history, when the radical political energies of a mass movement were fused with popular narrative forms. The result was a vital, accessible and popular fiction, informed by an awareness that Chartism had to forge its own brand of fiction in order to challenge the prevailing cultural misrepresentation of the working class and radical politics. This anthology is organised chronologically and includes a wide range of authors and genres, with complete poems and short stories as well as extracts from novels and other full-length works of fiction. The stories are divided into five areas which relect the range, scope and achievement of Chartism's intellectual and political imagination: the condition of England; Ireland; revolution; women and Chartism. The complete collection is set in an analytical framework and has a long historical introduction by the editor.

First published in 1999. For the first time since their appearance in Chartist newspapers these two major radical narratives are reprinted in a single volume. The Political Pilgrim’s Progress combines Utopian politics with Bunyanesque satire to tell the story of the journey of Radical and his family from the City of Plunder to the City of Reform. Sunshine and Shadow is the only serialized novel to have been published in the Northern Star. It brings together fictional biography and historical chronicle to form the first truly working-class novel. Both texts offer a unique insight into the literary achievements of the Chartist movement, and will be a valuable and entertaining source for scholars of radical politics. The texts are fully annotated, and the editor also provides an introduction to each story and a bibliography of recent scholarship.

Product Description: This book studies the impact of violence on the writing of the Romantic period. The focus is on the response of writers to a series of violent events including the revolutions in America and France and the Irish rebellion of 1798...read more

Product Description: This volume contains five works of fiction by the Chartist writer Ernest Jones. Born in Berlin in 1819, his family moved to England in 1838. His conversion to Chartism occurred after he fell into debt. Eventually he fell foul of the establishment and became a cause celebre whilst in gaol...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Romantic Period Writings 1798-1832 provides a valuable insight into the condition of Britain in the early part of the nineteenth century. It includes original documents from a range of disciplines and discourses. Each section includes a scholarly introduction, select bibliography, and annotations...read more

A volume in the WRITERS AND THEIR WORK series, which draws upon recent thinking in English studies to introduce writers and their contexts. Each volume includes biographical material, an examination of recent criticism, a bibliography and a reappraisal of a major work by the writer.

Product Description: The literary forgeries of James Macpherson and Thomas Chatterton are studied within the context of the eighteenth-century debate about the validity of using literature as a historical source and history as a literary topic.