Available Formats
Paperback
Published: 25th October 2004
Paperback
Published: 7th July 2005
Paperback, UK ed.
Published: 9th April 2012
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
By (Author) Robert Tressell
Introduction by Tristram Hunt
Penguin Books Ltd
Penguin Classics
25th October 2004
5th August 2004
United Kingdom
Paperback
784
Width 130mm, Height 198mm, Spine 33mm
543g
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists tells the story of a group of working men who are joined one day by Owen, a journeyman-prophet with a vision of a just society. Owen's spirited attacks on the greed and dishonesty of the capitalist system rouse his fellow men from their political quietism. A masterpiece of wit and political passion and one of the most authentic novels of English working class life ever written.
Robert Tressell is the pseudonym of Robert Noonan, an Irish housepainter who came to England from South Africa in 1900. He settled in Hastings, where he worked as a signwriter for various building firms. Tressell never lived to see his book in print; he died of tuberculosis in 1911, aged forty.