Useful toil;: Autobiographies of working people from the 1820s to the 1920s,

by John Burnett

'The twenty-seven autobiographies are in three sections, "The Labouring Classes" (the most vivid), "Domestic Servants" (not all like Upstairs Downstairs ) and "Skilled Workers" (the most self-assured)... Without exception they are vivid, arresting and thoroughly readable.'-- The Times Educational Supplement'An anonymous navvy in 1830 writes of his drinking and tramping; a farm labourer remembers his amusement at the coming of machines around 1870; Lucy Luck, a straw-plait worker, remembers her days in the union workhouse and her fight for some sort of dignity in marriage... the writers speak for themselves'-- Listener

Genres: History, Nonfiction

364 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1974