" . . . doors were being put where no doors had ever been before." |
Under the name "Tressell," Irishman Robert Noonan wrote what has come to be the most widely read novel of English working-class life; in so doing, he opened doors upon realities rarely touched upon, much less examined, in literary fiction. Published in 1914, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists features a Socialist protagonist who lives and works in Mugsborough--the fictionalized name for the southeastern coastal city of Hastings where Robert Noonan lived, worked, and wrote.
Rarely read in the United States, Tressell's novel has influenced and informed the working-class movement in England since its first publication; it continues to do so today, 91 years after it first appeared.
The novel has been published in three different versions: the 1914 edition, heavily abridged; a 1918 edition, further abridged; a 1955 edition, restored inasmuch as possible to Tressell's original text by F.C. Ball. The story of the MS is quite an interesting one. Work remains to be done on the reception of the novel, or more particularly, on the receptions of the novel's various editions. It was not until the '55 edition that the public came to know about the abridged forms in which the novel had appeared for more than forty years.
Alfred, David, ed. The Robert Tressell Lectures, 1981-88. Rochester, Kent: WEA for Castle Hill, 1988.
Ball, F.C. One of the Damned: The Life and Times of Robert Tressell, Author of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. 1973. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1979.
Mitchell, Jack. Robert Tressell and the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Introduction by Raymond Williams. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1969.
Robert Tressell Workshop. The Robert Tressell Papers: Exploring The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Introduction by Fred Ball. Rochester, Kent: WEA, 1982.
Smith, David. "Robert Tressell (Robert Phillipe Noonan)" 285-291 in George M. Johnson, ed. Late-Victorian and Edwardian British Novelists. Second Series. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol 179. Detroit: Gale, 1999.
Tressell, Robert. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. 1955. Introduction by Alan Sillitoe. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1962.
Williams, Raymond. "The Ragged-Arsed Philanthropists." in Writing in Society. Thetford, Norfolk: Thetford, 1983. 239-56.
THE ROBERT TRESSELL LECTURES
"The idea of an annual Robert Tressell Memorial Lecture arose out of the experience of two courses organised in 1980 by the Hasting & St Leonards Branch of the Workers' Educational Association. The first was a day-school on Tressell's life and work given by David Haines. The success of this event helped to pave the way for the setting up of the Robert Tressell Workshop, which went on to write and produce The Robert Tressell Papers: Exploring 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists'. It soon became apparent that there was a dearth of material on Tressell's book. . . .
To help rectify the lack of public appreciation of what many people consider to be an important part of our literary and political heritage, and as Tressell was a 'local' writer, I suggested to the Branch the holding of a Tressell memorial lecture in 1981. The proposal was taken up and proved successful. It was agreed to hold another one the folowing year. And so the tradition was established."
from David Alfred's preface to The Robert Tressell Lectures 1981-88
ADDITIONS UNDER CONSIDERATION FOR THE TRESSELL HOME PAGE
Tressell Web Site Production
Errors, corrections or additions? email halecl@uwec.edu
Serverspace for the Robert Tressell Web Site has been provided by the University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire; work on the site has been aided by a grant from the Office of University Research. In particular, I am indebted to the support of Professor Ronald Satz.