Post by janetandjohn on Dec 23, 2016 9:15:50 GMT
article by Gavin Mcrea about his inspiration
Mrs Engels was Lizzie Burns, from Irish stock but born in Manchester. She and her sister Mary were both lovers of Frederick Engels, Mary first, and after her death, Lizzie. Both illiterate, they are just ghosts in history; but Mcrea has given them both a voice - and given me an insight into Marxism and it's beginnings, because Frederick Engels was the close friend of Karl Marx.
You don't have to be interested in Marxism, Communism, or the free Irish movement beginnings to read this book, even though all those things are mentioned and drive the story. But what you will be interested in is the unique voice of Lizzie, second best to her sister Mary, unable to have children, exhaulted from a Manchester slum to a detached house with maids in Primrose Hill as Engels follows his path to greatness along with Karl Marx.
Excellent research makes this a very readable novel indeed, his descriptions of everyday life in both the Engels and Marx households; the slums of Manchester and the Rookery (slums again) in the Seven Dials area of London..... they all come alive for the reader. I was amazed by how little I knew of those revolutionary leaders, and stunned by their lifestyles. Because whilst encouraging the proletariat to rise up and change the world, they themselves led the life of bourgeois comfort, in nice detatched villas in the better parts of London (Marx in Regents Park Road and Engels in Primrose Hill). As I moved through the book I found myself detesting Marx, who employed a hairdresser to trim his beard and curl his hair for important meetings and spent his life living off Engels' money whilst writing his very important book. Am I taking the wrong view of a man of history? Who knows. Having got this off my chest (!) I must say that I really enjoyed this. The voice of Lizzie in the first person, in the present text, leads you through this small but important bit of Victorian history with a voice that's wholly her own - a woman who took what was offered rather than stay poor and downtrodden. Interesting - and recommended.
Mrs Engels was Lizzie Burns, from Irish stock but born in Manchester. She and her sister Mary were both lovers of Frederick Engels, Mary first, and after her death, Lizzie. Both illiterate, they are just ghosts in history; but Mcrea has given them both a voice - and given me an insight into Marxism and it's beginnings, because Frederick Engels was the close friend of Karl Marx.
You don't have to be interested in Marxism, Communism, or the free Irish movement beginnings to read this book, even though all those things are mentioned and drive the story. But what you will be interested in is the unique voice of Lizzie, second best to her sister Mary, unable to have children, exhaulted from a Manchester slum to a detached house with maids in Primrose Hill as Engels follows his path to greatness along with Karl Marx.
Excellent research makes this a very readable novel indeed, his descriptions of everyday life in both the Engels and Marx households; the slums of Manchester and the Rookery (slums again) in the Seven Dials area of London..... they all come alive for the reader. I was amazed by how little I knew of those revolutionary leaders, and stunned by their lifestyles. Because whilst encouraging the proletariat to rise up and change the world, they themselves led the life of bourgeois comfort, in nice detatched villas in the better parts of London (Marx in Regents Park Road and Engels in Primrose Hill). As I moved through the book I found myself detesting Marx, who employed a hairdresser to trim his beard and curl his hair for important meetings and spent his life living off Engels' money whilst writing his very important book. Am I taking the wrong view of a man of history? Who knows. Having got this off my chest (!) I must say that I really enjoyed this. The voice of Lizzie in the first person, in the present text, leads you through this small but important bit of Victorian history with a voice that's wholly her own - a woman who took what was offered rather than stay poor and downtrodden. Interesting - and recommended.
