Mugsborough Now And Then

There is only one novel set in Mugsborough: Robert Tressell‘s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

A new title does for that book, appreciated as it was by George Orwell, what other authors have done for a number of Orwell’s own works. We have a long article on this website by Gerry Abbott on Tressell and Orwell  who points out that Orwell first read the book in 1932. Abbott thinks that Orwell still held his appreciation for the Philanthropists eight years later in 1940 when he said it “has always seemed to me a wonderful book.” As Professor Peter Davison added, Orwell continued to appreciate it: reviewing a paperback edition in 1944 he wrote that it was “a book that everyone should read”. Although he praised Robert Tressell as a novelist, Orwell emphasised the social consequences of simple economics: “[w]ithout sensationalism and almost without plot … the actual detail of manual work and the tiny things almost unimaginable to any comfortably situated person which make life a misery when one’s income drops below a certain level”.

We have seen volumes examining Down and Out in Paris and London in the light of modern life.

Tony Wilkinson’s Down and Out (1981)

Sandy Craig and Chris Schwarz’s Down and Out: Orwell’s Paris and London Revisited (1984)

While The Road to Wigan Pier has had at least two volumes looking at that world:

Beatrix Campbell’s Wigan Pier Revisited: Poverty and Politics in the 80s (1984)

Stephen Armstrong’s The Road to Wigan Pier Revisited (2012)

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In February 2020 David E Lowes published Mugsborough Then and Now: Robert Tressell’s ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ Revisited (ISBN: 9798617758872).

Lowes compares Tressell’s descriptions of early 20th century Britain  with their 21st century counterparts. Each subject is split into two parts, with the first section quoting examples from The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists while in the second part evidence based modern-day equivalents are introduced. Full references can be found at the end of the book, as can a bibliography of Robert Tressell studies. The author is a member of the Socialist History Society, where more details of the book can be found.

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Daniel Lavelle’s Down and Out: Surviving the Homelessness Crisis (2023)

Winner of the 2023 Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness

Extended: November 18, 2021