Book Review from the November 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard
Penguin Books have published in their Modern Classics series a new edition of this working class classic by Robert Tressell. Price £8.99. Well worth reading if you’ve not got a copy already – despite the odd choice, to write the introduction, of a one-time “ministerial adviser in the Labour government of 1997-2001”, odd because Tressell was a member of the SDF, whose members had some knowledge of Marxian ideas, enough anyway for them to see through Labourism.
The unnamed "one-time “ministerial adviser in the Labour government of 1997-2001" " was Tristram Hunt, biographer of Fred Engels and a Labour MP from 2010-2017.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if anyone has ever done a study of the various introductions to RTP? The version of RTP that I read when I was 15 had an introduction by the well known novelist, Alan Sillitoe.
The RTP introduction I'd love to read is the one from the 1927 edition. That edition of the RTP would still have been a truncated version - see F. C. Ball's research for further details - and the introduction was by George Hicks, a founder member of the SPGB, TUC General Council member and future Labour MP. Hopefully it will one day turn up on archive.org