British Working-Class and Radical Writing Since 1700 sheds light on how working-class voices — often silenced by poverty, gatekeeping, and editorial ‘improvements’ — found powerful ways to speak out. It reveals radical writing not just as fiery protest, but as subtle, strategic, and deeply creative acts that reshaped ideas, culture, and politics across centuries.

Far from a narrow tradition, working-class radicalism emerges here as a wide-ranging force: tackling inequality, exposing sexism and slavery, and questioning domination over animals and nature.

The book traces these engagements through explorations of lesser-known authors, while also reconsidering celebrated figures like John Clare. Also, several chapters speak to Birmingham’s cultural and political heritage:

•          The dynamism of the Chartist poet H.H. Horton and his poem Birmingham (1853) — by the late Stephen Roberts (Honorary Fellow of Birmingham University).

•          A study of cleaners’ unseen contributions to postwar theatre, including in the Alexandra Theatre — by Sarah Whitfield, Reader at the Royal College of Music.

•          An insider account of women’s early breakthrough in the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in the 1970s — by Prof. Monika Seidl.

Digital copies of British Working-Class and Radical Writing Since 1700 are also available for free by clicking here. 

John Goodridge is Emeritus Professor of English at Nottingham Trent University, and President of the John Clare Society.

Adam Bridgen is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow in the Department of English, Durham University