"The secret of the book's endurance is its art and truth. Noonan was a master of working men's speech. Writing about his own environment to the extent that much of the feeling of his book is clearly autobiographical, he never lets passion or indignation mislead his ear. In his preface he takes the trouble to declare that the purpose of his novel is to proclaim socialism. That need not put the reader off. From the moment, on the first page, when you join the gang of builders and decorators who are renovating the three-storyed house "The Cave" you enter a world which though now largely past is vivid and real. It is a world of cut-throat wages, of fear and hatred of the foreman (himself terrified of his boss), of the spectre of unemployment, which rules almost all the men's actions and is the real villain. There are also vestiges of Dickensian kindness, a human comradeship among the working men, a Samaritan attitude to the families of each other... The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists rings far more true than many of the better known "condition of the people" novels of its day. That is why it has lasted."
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William Haley (writing under the pseudonym Oliver Edwards), 'Ragged But Robust', The Times (28 May 1964), p. 15
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Tressell
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Robert Tressell
Robert Phillipe Noonan (17 April 1870 – 3 February 1911), born Robert Croker, and best known by the pen name Robert Tressell, was an Irish writer best known for his novel The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists.
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