Working-Class Intellectual in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain

In Britain the period that stretches from the middle of the eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century marks the emergence of the working classes alongside and in response to the development of the middle-class public sphere. This collection contributes to that scholarship by exploring the figure of the working-class intellectual who both assimilates the anti-authoritarian lexicon of the middle classes to create a new political and cultural identity and revolutionizes it with the subversive energy of class hostility. Through considering a broad range of writings across key moments of working-class self-expression the essays reevaluate a host of familiar writers such as Robert Burns John Thelwall Charles Dickens Charles Kingsley Ann Yearsley and even Shakespeare in terms of their role within a working-class constituency. The collection also breaks fresh ground in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholarship by shedding light on a number of unfamiliar and underrepresented figures such as Alexander Somerville Michael Faraday and the singer Ned Corvan.