The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

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This book is not much cop, is it?

Cathy has read it, but doesn't seem to think it's much cop either:

and think of myself as a Socialist (I somehow got through the whole of 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists')

Does anyone like it? I have only read chapter one. Perhaps I should just read the introduction and forget about the rest of it.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Friday, 30 September 2005 09:52 (twenty years ago)

I really liked it. It obviously needed a bit of editing but it's a great, great book...

― angle of d... (tingo), Friday, 30 September 2005 10:02 (twenty years ago)

It's basically "Auf Wiedersehen Pet" with Politics.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 30 September 2005 10:10 (twenty years ago)

i love it. i'd like to read it again.

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Friday, 30 September 2005 10:12 (twenty years ago)

It's a great book, prob'ly best thought of as Dickens does Ken Loach. Tressell obviously wasn't a literary innovator, but the detail in his descriptions of urban life in the 1900s makes it worth reading even if you don't enjoy the Soap Operatic mix of comedy, confrontation and sadness he works into the story. For everything in Owen's politics that seems dated or naive or wrong, there are observations of the nature of manual employment that remain coldly accurate today.

― Don King of the Mountain (noodle vague), Friday, 30 September 2005 11:00 (twenty years ago)

noodle totally OTM.

― JimD (JimD), Friday, 30 September 2005 11:05 (twenty years ago)

Particularly on the ultimate conclusion of "Free market economy" i.e. work going to the 'lowest bidder'...

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 30 September 2005 12:30 (twenty years ago)

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