Cover of the 1963 hardback edition
E P Thompson & the Making of the English Working Class. Made in August
E P Thompson signed the contract for the Making of the English Working Class in August 1959. It was for a book rather shorter in length than the one that was eventually published but one that was also meant to cover a much longer period. As Thompson noted the Making, which is the best part of a thousand pages long in print, was just the first chapter.
By April 1962 a note in his MI5 file suggests he was ‘desperately’ trying to finish the book. He did so finally in August 1963.
The original August 1959 contract with Victor Gollancz was for a book of 60,000 words covering the period 1790-1921. The Making gets to the mid-1830s and as Thompson underlined was in fact the first, if very long, chapter
30 years and many more books and campaigning later he sadly died on 28th August 1993.
Leave a Reply