The literature of struggle: an anthology of Chartist fiction

At its height, during the 1830s and 40s, Chartism inspired a prodigious literary output, based on its own newspapers and journals.

While some Chartist political writings have been reprinted, the fiction of the movement has been largely neglected.

Chartist stories represent a unique moment in literary history, when the radical political energies of a mass movement were fused with popular narrative forms.

The result was a vital, accessible and popular fiction, informed by an awareness that Chartism had to forge its own brand of fiction in order to challenge the prevailing cultural misrepresentation of the working class and radical politics.