Krishnamurthy (Fitchburg State College) presents 12 essays examining a diverse array of figures who through various forms sought to engage 18th and 19th British audiences with the realities of the working class. Topics include the impact of sensational literature on the overtly radical discourse of Chartism, the supposed "cultural conservatism" of working-class readers and the centrality of Shakespeare in Chartist magazines, radical aesthetics in the works of William Hone and George Cruickshank and its influence on the novelistic techniques of middle-class writers such as Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray, Chartism in the Charles Kingsley novel Alton Locke, competing class and political loyalties in the writings of Alexander Somerville and Michael Faraday, and the rise and fall of working-class narratives and artists in the music halls of Victorian England. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)