Overview
- Presents an account of the emergence of the figure of the "tramp" in the late modern period
- Offers a survey of representations of homelessness, uncovering a neglected body of tramp literature
- Presents select texts as a unique contribution to a wider radical anti-productivist discourse
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Table of contents (4 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
- Tramp literature
- Tramp fiction
- Tramp life-writing
- Social exploration literature
- Life Writing
- Victorian Literature
- Homelessness
- Poverty
- Vagrancy
- Vagabondage
- Michel Foucault
- Alain Badiou
- W.H. Davies
- Bart Kennedy
- Morley Roberts
- John Worby
- Chris Massie
- Jim Phelan
- Liam O'Flaherty
- William Wordsworth
- Charles Dickens
- George Gissing
- George Orwell
- Walter Brierley
- Ethel Carnie Holdsworth
- James Hanley
About this book
Reviews
“Luke Lewin Davies’s The Tramp in British Literature, 1850–1950 is an impressively detailed, critical, historically informed, and accessibly written engagement with the evolving representation and self-representation of vagrants and vagrancy in Britain across centuries. … It is the first full-length work to cover the topic of the tramp in such a comprehensive fashion and offers a startlingly broad survey of the subject. … it is of wide interest, and deserves to be widely read.” (Mary M. Burke, English Studies, July 27, 2023)
“This study incorporates writings about life on the road in other countries as well, which leads to interesting comparisons, and moves away from a focus on nationality and towards a more universal understanding of homelessness. … This is a truly comprehensive study of writings … sheer scale of the writings incorporated can only have been achieved by a writing style that does not waste words, and which is yet not dry but happily readable. It is a truly stunning achievement.” (Ana Alicia Garza, Fiona Snailham, Sally Blackburn-Daniels, Heather Hind and William Baker, The Year's Work in English Studies, July 17, 2023)
“Davies’s The Tramp in British Literature, 1850–1950 offers an immensely detailed account of the tramp in literary texts that span more than a century, with a focus on the late-Victorian age. … The study is well-structured and indeed very clearly signposted, allowing the reader to navigate this wealth of information and detailed analysis.” (Tamara S. Wagner, Dickens Quarterly, Vol. 40 (1), March, 2023)
“It is an extraordinarily comprehensive study of tramp writing in the nineteenth century. Davies also incorporates an impressively concise history of the genre from the sixteenth century to the middle of the twenty-first. This readable and authoritative account encompasses sound theoretical analysis and detailed explorations of a selection of memoirs and literary treatments. Davies’s writing is succinct, almost scientific at times.” (Ana Alicia Garza, The Times Literary Supplement, the-tls.co.uk, December 2, 2022)
“Some thirty-three memoirists and eighteen fiction writers are discussed in what Davies claims is the first comprehensive survey of tramp literature. Real homeless writers are amongst them. Davies’s ‘radical’ analyses are always fascinating and this book is well worth reading – whether you are an academic or not.” (Orwell Society Review, Autumn, 2022)
“Davies’ book is the most comprehensive text available on tramp fiction, biography and autobiography in the many different forms that Davies presents it. … I will have to read this book more than once to fully appreciate its scope and content, including the countless delightful anecdotes from the subject’s of Davies curiosity. Among other things, this text has left me with a formidable list of book titles that I must now locate and read to further enrich my own appreciation of vagabond literature.” (Ian Cutler, Compulsive Reader, compulsivereader.com, March 16, 2022)
“Davies’s book is valuable from the point of view of the number of novels and memoirs he considers in his fascinating and wide-ranging survey of tramp literature. Most of us will never get the opportunity to read the books, and perhaps wouldn’t be keen to do so. They were not all masterpieces. But he makes each book seem relevant within his chosen framework and provides a great deal of information about them and their writers in good, direct prose.” (Jim Burns, THE PENNILESS PRESS ON-LINE, pennilesspress.co.uk, February, 2023)
“Full of interest and populated by wonderful and sometimes hateful figures, anecdote, humour and sadness.” (Jason Crimp, The Orwell Society Journal, September, 2022)
“Essenital reading.” (Kirsty Allison, Ambit Magazine, November, 2022)
“The first comprehensive survey of trampdom over the last 600 years. Uniquely informative and readable.” (John Sutherland, Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of English, University College London)
“Essential reading for anyone interested in the wider currents of working-class life writing and fiction.” (Nick Hubble, Professor of English, Brunel University London)
“With its abundance of arresting examples and careful theoretical analyses, this book will interest all who ponder proletarian literature’s radical political possibilities.” (Florence Boos, Professor of English, University of Iowa)
“An absorbing study, meticulously detailed and contextualised, on an important topic.” (John Goodridge, Emeritus Professor of English, Nottingham Trent University)
“A remarkable service for scholars and students alike, raising pressing, timely questions about the ideology of productiveness.” (Matthew Beaumont, Professor of English, University College London)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Luke Lewin Davies teaches at the University of Tübingen, Germany.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Tramp in British Literature, 1850—1950
Authors: Luke Lewin Davies
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73432-9
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-73431-2Published: 24 November 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-73434-3Published: 25 November 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-73432-9Published: 01 January 2022
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVI, 344
Topics: British and Irish Literature, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Twentieth-Century Literature, British Culture