The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
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| The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists | |
| Author | Robert Tressell |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Grant Richards |
| Publication date | 23 April 1914 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a novel by Robert Tressell (17 April 1870–3 February 1911), first published in 1914 after his death. An explicitly political work, it is widely regarded as a classic of British working-class literature.
Robert Tressell was the nom-de-plume of Robert Noonan, who chose the surname Tressell in reference to the trestle table, an important part of his kit as a painter and decorator. Based on his own experiences of poverty, exploitation, and his terror that he and his daughter — whom he was raising alone — would be consigned to the workhouse if he became ill, Tressell embarks on a detailed and scathing analysis of the relationship between working-class people and their employers. The "philanthropists" of the title are the workers who, in Tressell's view, acquiesce in their own exploitation in the interests of their bosses. The novel is set in the fictional town of Mugsborough, based on the southern English coastal town of Hastings, where Tressell lived. The original title page of the book carried the subtitle: "Being the story of twelve months in Hell, told by one of the damned, and written down by Robert Tressell."
He completed The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists in 1910, but the 1,600 page-long hand-written manuscript was rejected by the three publishing houses to which it was submitted. The rejection severely depressed Tressell, and his daughter had to save the manuscript from being burnt. It was placed for safekeeping in a metal box underneath her bed.
After he died of tuberculosis, his daughter Kathleen was determined to have her father's writing published, and showed it to a friend, the writer Jessie Pope. Pope recommended it to her own publisher, who bought the rights to the book in April 1914 for £25. It appeared that year in Britain, Canada, and the United States, and was in the Soviet Union in 1920 and Germany in 1925.
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
Clearly frustrated at the refusal of his contemporaries to recognise the iniquity of society, Tressell's cast of hypocritical Christians, exploitative capitalists and corrupt councillors provide a backdrop for his main target -- the workers who think that a better life is "not for the likes of them". Hence the title of the book; Tressell paints the workers as "philanthropists" who unselfishly (read: stupidly) throw themselves into back-breaking work for poverty wages in order to generate profit for their masters.
The hero of the book, Frank Owen, is a socialist who believes that the capitalist system is the real source of the poverty he sees all around him. In vain he tries to convince his fellow workers of his world view, but finds that their education has trained them to distrust their own thoughts and to rely on those of their "betters". Much of the book consists of conversations between Owen and the others, or more often lectures by Owen in the face of their jeering, which seems likely to have mirrored Tressell's own experiences.
[edit] Major themes
The book is a fascinating glimpse of social life in Britain at a time when socialism was beginning to gain ground. It was around this time that the Labour Party was founded and began to win seats in the House of Commons.
Espousing socialism, the book makes little reference to trade unionism, instead advocating a socialist economy where work is performed to satisfy need rather than to generate profit. A key chapter is "The Great Money Trick", in which Owen organises a mock-up of capitalism with his workmates, using slices of bread as raw materials and knives as machinery. Owen 'employs' his workmates cutting up the bread to illustrate that the employer - who does not work - generates personal wealth whilst the workers effectively remain no better off than when they began, endlessly swapping coins back and forth for food and wages. Without saying so, Tressell illustrates the Marxist concept of surplus value, which is generated by labour under the capitalist system.
