Men from Nowhere: Literary representations of class by writers from the social margins 1880 – 1910

Giggle, Deborah (2024) Men from Nowhere: Literary representations of class by writers from the social margins 1880 – 1910. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

The period 1880 to 1910 witnessed the emergence of writers from the social periphery who capitalised on new opportunities for publication. These decades also experienced, however, the highest peak in wealth inequality in Britain in two hundred years, with the top 10% of society owning more that 90% of the country’s total wealth.1 Powerful discourses of class also intensified towards the fin de siècle, hardening attitudes towards those from humble backgrounds. Despite Britain’s proud legacy of literary achievement by authors from the lower-middle class, the discourse of public school ‘character’ and pseudo-scientific eugenic theories now challenged the potential for creative genius among those born into working-class or petit bourgeois families. For socially-marginalised authors, positive commercial developments and negative social attitudes were in direct opposition.

Authors conversant with life at the social margins, including H. G. Wells, Jerome K. Jerome, George Grossmith, Frank Swinnerton, William Pett Ridge and J. M. Barrie, provide a crucial commentary on the class-based inequalities and biases of the late-Victorian and Edwardian eras. This thesis provides an in-depth analysis of social critique in specific texts published by this group of authors between 1880 and 1910, analysing in detail the methods by which they resisted, challenged and rejected the powerful discourses of class that underpinned inequality of treatment and opportunity in late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Analysis of their social critique provides a largely overlooked perspective on individual resistance, as a vital counterpoint to more widely studied collective resistance witnessed during this period in, for example, the emergence of socialism and developments within trade unionism.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	20 Mar 2025 15:17
Last Modified:	20 Mar 2025 15:17
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98833
DOI:

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