Master and Servant

Love and Labour in the English Industrial Age

Carolyn Steedman (University of Warwick)

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English

Cambridge University Press
19 September 2007

History; British & Irish history; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900; Social & cultural history; Social classes

Series: Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories

Leading historian Carolyn Steedman offers a fascinating and compelling account of love, life and domestic service in eighteenth-century England. This book, situated in the regional and chronological epicentre of E. P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, focuses on the relationship between a Church of England clergyman (the Master of the title) and his pregnant maidservant in the late eighteenth century. This case-study of people behaving in ways quite contrary to the standard historical account sheds new light on the much wider historical questions of Anglicanism as social thought, the economic history of the industrial revolution, domestic service, the poor law, literacy, education, and the very making of the English working class. It offers a unique meditation on the relationship between history and literature and will be of interest to scholars and students of industrial England, social and cultural history and English literature.

By: Carolyn Steedman (University of Warwick)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Volume: v. 10
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 16mm
Weight: 410g
ISBN: 9780521697736
ISBN 10: 0521697735
Series: Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories
Pages: 276
Publication Date: 19 September 2007
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

1. Introduction: on service and silences; 2. Wool, worsted, and the working class: myths of origin; 3. Lives and writing; 4. Labour; 5. Working for a living; 6. Teaching; 7. Relations; 8. The Gods; 9. Love; 10. Nelly's version; 11. Conclusion: Phoebe in Arcadia; Bibliography.

Carolyn Steedman is Professor of History at the University of Warwick. Her previous publications include Strange Dislocations. Childhood and the Idea of Human Interiority, 1780-1980 (1995) and Dust (2001).

Reviews for Master and Servant: Love and Labour in the English Industrial Age

'Steedman is as interested in the stories we tell about the past as she is in what actually happened in that faraway country. Her concern in Master and Servant is not merely to rescue Phoebe Beatson from bad melodrama, but to show how even the best-intentioned historical writing can end up making us see things that aren't there ...' The Guardian '... this book is hugely innovative in its literary and historical ambitions. ... It is also a welcome reconstruction of the life of a single individual of a class, of a sort and of an occupation that has left only the faintest traces in the archive, whose silence has been for too long allowed to excuse the criminal neglect of historians.' Social History 'Master and Servant is a novel and compelling book. ... It roves across a fascinating array of topics, including pagan gods, classical didactic works, and (a very interesting and insightful) discussion of the philosophy of labor and its value. ... Many research students will find the insight into the process of research very useful.' Journal of British Studies