Mark Hovell's account of The Chartist Movement, originally published in 1918 and revised on several occasions, remains the classic narrative account of the rise and ultimate failure of this mass 19th century artisan and labour movement. Chartism's primary objective of setting the agenda for political reform and subsequent social regeneration dominated the domestic political stage for over a decade, and Hovell's account is still a sound starting point for any serious understanding of the subject."

Chartist poetry was written by and for workers. In contrast with the portrayal of workers by mainstream Victorian writers, Chartist verse is intellectual, complex, and socially conscious and reflects an international outlook.

"Chartism was a Victorian era working class movement for political reform in Britain between 1838 and 1848. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. The term "Chartism" is the umbrella name for numerous loosely coordinated local groups, often named "Working Men's Association," articulating grievances in many cities from 1837. Its peak activity came in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It began among skilled artisans in small shops, such as shoemakers, printers, and tailors. The movement was more aggressive in areas with many distressed handloom workers, such as in Lancashire and the Midlands. It began as a petition movement which tried to mobilize "moral force", but soon attracted men who advocated strikes, General strikes and physical violence, such as Feargus O'Connor and known as "physical force" chartists."--Wikipedia

Redressing a gap in Chartism studies, Rob Breton focuses on the fiction that emerged from the movement, placing it in the context of the Victorian novel and reading it against the works aimed at the middle-class. Breton examines works by well-known writers such as Ernest Jones and Thomas Cooper alongside those of obscure or anonymous writers, rejecting the charge that Chartist fiction fails aesthetically, politically, and culturally. Rather, Breton suggests, it constitutes a type of anti-fiction in which the expectations of narrative are revealed as irreconcilable to the real world. Taking up a range of genres, including the historical romance and social-problem story, Breton theorizes the emergence of the fiction against Marxist conceptualizations of cultural hegemony. In situating Chartist fiction in periodical print culture and specific historical moments, this book shows the ways in which it serves as a critique of mainstream Victorian fiction.

First published in 2001. When the Chartist leader Ernest Jones emerged from prison in 1850, he was determined to capture the public’s attention with a controversial and topical novel. The result of his endeavours was the remarkable Woman’s Wrongs, a series of five tales exploring women’s oppression at every level of society from the working class to the aristocracy. Each story presents a graphic, often harrowing account of the social, economic and emotional victimization of women, and taken together the tales comprise a devastating indictment of Victorian patriarchal attitudes and sexual inequalities. In his substantial Introduction, Ian Haywood places the novel in the context of Jones’s career as a Chartist author and editor, and in the wider context of the ‘woman question’. Some of the topics covered by the Introduction include: the radical press and popular enlightenment, Jones’s rivalry with George W. M. Reynolds, and the needlewoman as radical icon. This title will be of interest to students of history.

Britain has not been successfully invaded since 1066; nor, in nearly 1,000 years has it known a true revolution – one that brings radical, systemic and enduring change. The contrast with Britain’s European neighbours, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Russia, is dramatic – all have been convulsed by external warfare, revolution and civil war and experienced fundamental change to their ruling elites or social and economic structures. Frank McLynn takes seven occasions when Britain came closest to revolution: the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381; the Jack Cade rebellion of 1450; the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536; the English Civil Wars of the 1640s; the Jacobite Rising of 1745-6; the Chartist Movement of 1838-48; and the General Strike of 1926. Why, at these dramatic turning points, did history finally fail to turn? McLynn examines Britain’s history and themes of social, religious and political change to explain why social turbulence stopped short of revolution on so many occasions.