BritAnons. Working class writers

What good English writers come from a working class background? Don't have to write about being working class, just come from that background.
Can only think of two:
>Anthony Burgess
>D.H.Lawrence

John Clare.

I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale.
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked, what could I ail?
My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away,
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start --
They spoke as chords do from the string,
And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter's choice?
Is love's bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice,
Not love's appeals to know.
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before.
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more

burgess is probably the only english author i really respect.

why? do you need validation?

Will Self

>"After graduating from Oxford, Self worked for the Greater London Council, including a period as a road sweeper, while living in Brixton. He then pursued a career as a cartoonist for the New Statesman and other publications [...] In 1989, "through a series of accidents", he "blagged" his way into running a small publishing company."

B. S. Johnson
J. L. Carr
Ann Quin
Laurie Lee
Philip Larkin

Chaucer
Bunyan
Marlowe

That's pretty bad.

William Shakespeare
Geoffrey Chaucer

Ben Jonson worked as a bricklayer before becoming a playwright-poet

John Shakespeare was the Mayor of Stratford so while Shakespeares background was still pretty humble, he technically would have been middle class

Just want English writers who don't write downton abbey type shit.
Cheers, will take a look at these.
>>kek

Philip Larkin came from a middle-class background, but he can hardly be said to have been well-off.

he can hardly be said to have been literature either

but you specfically asked about their background, not what they write about

>After graduating from Oxford
>Working class

I sense bait

Kinda anti-semitic. You might want to tone that down?

(there is a report button, just so you know)

...

Hahaha, Self is a class-tourist with a barely disguised contempt for the working class. See: the Book of Dave

While not technically "working class", Dickens lived in poverty and worked in a Blacking factory for a while when his father ran into debt

Unfortunately, most good British writers have been lower-middle class

Similar with Thomas Hardy - he grew up with and lived among the working class, and his father was a builder/stone mason, but he was an aspiring architect who loved poetry and I don't know if he ever got his hands dirty. I believe he didn't like London though, because he felt too pleb.

Dickens and Hardy (and Shakespeare besides) are three of my favourite writers and I think these lower-middle class conditions are probably ideal for a writer because they have both contact with ordinary life and the necessary access to education (and time) to produce something with good form

John Keats had a fairly humble background.

His father worked at a stable and was killed when John was young.

Robert Tressell

I don't know who you are - but marry me.

...

I just finished a short story collection called Treats by Lara by Lara Williams which is an interesting take on poor-ish millenials, now I'm reading a book called We Don't Know What We're Doing by Tom Morris which is about different people in the same town and their individual struggles and so on. Next up is a book by Barney Norris called Five Rivers Meet on a Wooded Plain.

Orwell seemed poor at times. He is quite literally down and out in 'down and out in paris and London'

Aneurin Bevan

Nah, was training to be a doc.

This is true.

Shakespeare’s grandfather was gentry

Carlyle’s father was a manual laborer

David Starkey

Think he was training to be a surgeon, which at the time was about as prestigious as being a barber

Well pre-industrial revolution there was of course no working class, but Shakespeare was from a humble background, didnt go to Cambridge, study for the Priesthood etc

At St. Thomas? really ?

Only oxbridge/the church had prestige in the nineneeth century as educational institutions. Youre seeing it through contemporary eyes. Surgery was a trade.

Went to his house in Hampstead.
Was definitely lower-middle class at the very least
Fair points though

Actually this is a very astute point; class had different levels across time.

Yes but op framed his question using class measurements so Shakespeare was Gentry/Pleb, but retrospectively middle class

Harold Pinter
Shelagh Delaney
Morrisey
Colin Wilson
Alan Silitoe
Edward Bond

>good
>Morrissey
pick one and only one

Do London Irish count? If so, Martin McDonagh.

>Burgess was middle class
>Self is a rat hiding as being working class, sent his kids to private school but calls himself a socialist
>larkin was middle class

Orwell was an Eton boy from a genteel family. His poverty was semi voluntary.