"Which books did the British working classes read - and how did they read them? How did they respond to canonical authors, penny dreadfuls, classical music, school stories, Shakespeare, Marx, Hollywood movies, imperialist propaganda, the Bible, the BBC, the Bloomsbury Group? What was the quality of their classroom education, as they experienced it? How did they educate themselves?

What was their level of cultural literacy: how much did they know about politics, science, history, philosophy, poetry, and sexuality? Who were the proletarian intellectuals, and why did they pursue the life of the mind?".

"These intriguing questions - which until recently historians considered unanswerable - are addressed in The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes. Using innovative research techniques and a vast range of unexpected sources this book tracks the rise and decline of the British autodidact from the pre-industrial era to the twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET.