Robert Tressell (1870-1911)
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (unabridged) was first published in a complete, unabridged version in 1955. (There were earlier incomplete versions in the 1950s. It was never published in the author’s lifetime.)
This is the story of a band of oppressed painter-decorators, and the socialist visionary who joins them. It is set in a northern town in Edwardian England and demonstrates the subjection of the working class, suggesting a socialist alternative.
Some years ago I had to explain Marx’s theory of surplus value to a bunch of students. I used the Great Money Trick of Chapter 21. After reducing a loaf of bread to crumbs the students had understood and claimed to enjoy it. We then fed the crumbs to the ducks in a local park.
The source was a PG text file. I have added curly quotes, a TOC, restored italics and scanned in the diagrams. The author’s spelling and capitalisation is idiosyncratic at times.
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