The Tramp in British Literature, 18501950 [Hardcover]

Shortlisted for the Literary Encyclopedia Book Prize 2022, The Tramp in British Literature, 1850-1950 offers a unique account of the emergence of a new conception of homelessness in the mid-nineteenth century. After arguing that the emergence of the figure of the tramp reflects the evolution of capitalism and disciplinary society in this period, The Tramp in British Literature uncovers a neglected body of tramp literature written by memoir and fiction writers, many of whom were themselves homeless. In analysing these works, it presents select texts as a unique and ignored contribution to a wider radical discourse defined by its opposition to a wider societal preoccupation with the need to be productive.Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Reverse Discourse Tramp Memoirs.- Chapter 3. Reverse Discourse Tramp Fiction.- Chapter 4. Conclusion./

“Both books under review concern themselves with British literary and cultural constructions of the vagrant tramp during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Each is a valuable contribution to scholarship on how discourses of the wandering classes have embedded themselves into policies and populist narratives that have often rendered these groups invisible.” (N. J. Crowson, Victorian Studies, Vol. 66 (3), 2024) 

“Luke Lewin Davies’s The Tramp in British Literature, 1850–1950 is an impressively detailed, critical, historically informed, and accessibly written engagement with the evolving representation and self-representation of vagrants and vagrancy in Britain across centuries. … It is the first full-length work to cover the topic of the tramp in such a comprehensive fashion and offers a startlingly broad survey of the subject. … it is of wide interest, and deserves to be widely read.” (Mary M. Burke, English Studies, July 27, 2023)

“This study inlc(