Just finished Merrie England by Robert Blatchford (Nunquam)
Quite difficult to get hold of, but I was lucky enough to get a facsimile reprint from the 70s.
Because it's a facsimile, the pages are tinted brown, and it has the original double columns of small print, so has been a bit difficult to read.
Nonetheless, it is an inspiring book, and an uplifting one. For those who don't know, Nunquam was the editor of The Clarion newspaper - a popular socialist paper from 1891 to the First World war, when it lost sales because of its support for the war, in contrast to most other, more internationalist, socialists, though it lasted to 1931.
I had thought that Merrie England was a compilation of a series of columns by Nunquam in the paper, but I now find that the dates show that it was a book first, later serialised in The Clarion.
It takes the form of a series of expositions addressed to John Smith, an Oldham weaver, representing an everyman. Nunquam addresses the concerns and misconceptions of socialism which working people might have (so many of them still apply today), and explores the fundamental paradoxes of capitalism, and how they lead to inequality, before describing how John might join with his colleagues to achieve the socialism which would benefit them.
The style catches on to a growing movement of the time towards workers' self-education, which has its lasting effects in the public library system, and organisations such as WEA. So, despite the format of the author explaining to the worker, it never strays into being patronising, despite using everyday language to express quite complex ideas.
Well worth a read, as an insight into the ethical socialism of Morris, Hyndman et al, as well as a documentary record of current conditions in England at the time.
I also have an original copy of the companion volume, Dismal England, which I started reading last year, but it is hard to get through, because it is unpleasant to think that humans can treat others in the way described.
