Reproduction of the original: The Factory Boy by Aunt Hattie

The Factory Boy is a thought-provoking social commentary novel penned by Madeline Leslie. Through the eyes of its young protagonist, the story sheds light on the harsh realities and challenges faced by child laborers during the industrial revolution. Leslie's poignant narrative and well-developed characters make this book a powerful reflection on societal inequalities and the indomitable human spirit, urging readers to reflect on historical injustices.

First edition in book form, originally published in the columns of the Northern Warder according to the dedication. The author, who worked first in a spinning mill, writes of the moral degradation of the female spinners and the drinking habits in mills, and of his own reading (Defoe, Smollet, Bunyan). He then turned shoemaker, met Robert Nicoll, the poet, married, and settled down. An uncommon contribution to Victorian working-class literature.

Factory Lives contains four works of great importance in the field of nineteenth-century working-class autobiography: John Brown’s A Memoir of Robert Blincoe; William Dodd’s A Narrative of the Experience and Sufferings of William Dodd; Ellen Johnston’s “Autobiography”; and James Myles’s Chapters in the Life of a Dundee Factory Boy. This Broadview edition also includes a remarkably rich selection of historical documents that provide context for these works. Appendices include contemporary responses to the autobiographies, debates on factory legislation, transcripts of testimony given before parliamentary committees on child labour, and excerpts from literary works on factory life by Harriet Martineau, Frances Trollope, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, among others.