The Condition of England Question

This text views the "hungry forties" in early-Victorian England through the writings of the conservative Thomas Carlyle, the liberal John Stuart Mill, and the socialist Friedrich Engels. The growth of industrial cities, the emergence of working-class organizations and rising middle-class power, as well as revolutions abroad in 1848 made this a tumultuous time. These writers provide reflections on the tensions produced in this key period of transition to an industrial, democratic society.