Robert Blatchford: Neglected Socialist

Abstract

Alexander Library has recently acquired thirty books written by the English socialist, Robert Blatchford (1851–1943). Blatchford was a journalist whose best known book, Merrie England, sold over two million copies after its publication in 1893. He had considerable influence at the turn of this century on the founders of the Labour Party; at that time his name was more familiar than that of Karl Marx. Yet since Blatchford's death only one biography has been published, and perhaps no one of comparable importance in modern British history has been as neglected.