Greek and Roman Classics in the British Struggle for Social Reform

Edith Hall is Professor of Classics, King’s College London, UK, and Consultant Director of the APGRD in Oxford, UK. She has published more than twenty books on ancient Greek culture and its reception including Inventing the Barbarian (1989), The Theatrical Cast of Athens (2006), The Return of Ulysses (2008), Greek Tragedy (2010), Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris (2013) and Introducing the Ancient Greeks (2014).Henry Stead is AHRC Postdoctoral Research Associate, King’s College London, UK, and author of A Cockney Catullus (forthcoming).

• 1. Introduction, Henry Stead (King’s College London, UK) and Edith Hall (King's College London, UK)2. Radicalism and Gradualism Enmeshed: Classics from the Grass-roots in the Cultural Politics of 19th-century Britain, Lorna Hardwick (Open University, UK) 3. Coleridge's Classicised Politics, Adam Roberts (Royal Holloway London, UK)4. Swinish Classics; or, a Conservative Clash with Cockney Culture, Henry Stead (King’s College London, UK)5. The Harmless Impudence of a Revolutionary: Radical Classics in 1850s London, Edmund Richardson (University of Leeds, UK)6. Making it Really New: Dickens versus the Classics, Edith Hall (King’s College London, UK)7. Classics and Social Closure, Christopher Stray (University of Swansea, UK)8. Hercules as Symbol of Labour: a 19th-century Class-conflicted Hero, Paula James (Open University, UK)9. Vulcan — A 'Working Class' God? Annie Ravenhill-Johnson (University of Aberystwyth, UK) 10. Nature versus Nurture: Population Decline and Lessons from the Ancient World, Sarah J. Butler (Royal Holloway London, UK)11. The Space of Politics: Classics, Utopia and the Defence of Order, Richard Alston (Royal Holloway London, UK)12. Classically Educated Women in the Early Independent Labour Party, Edith Hall (King’s College London, UK)13. The Greeks of the W.E.A.: Realities and Rhetorics in the First Two Decades, Barbara Goff (University of Reading, UK)14. Christopher Caudwell's Greek and Latin Classics, Edith Hall (King’s College London, UK)15. Staging the Haitian Revolution in London: Britain, the West Indies and C.L.R. James’ Toussaint Louverture, Justine McConnell (University of Oxford, UK)16. Yesterday's Men: Labour's Modernising Elite from the 1960s to Classical Times, Michael Simpson (Goldsmith’s College London, UK)BibliographyIndex

This collection explores some unfamiliar byways and usefully reacts against ... the idea that classical culture was used as a barrier to keep the workers out.