Andrew Lownie Literary Agency :: The Middle Class

A penetrating, comprehensive and wry survey of the middle class from 1400 to the present day. It will reveal how the middle classes made modern Britain and urges them to be proud of their collective past. There are extensive accounts of their morals and manners, their ambitions, snobberies, dreams and pleasures. The notion of 'middle-class' morality is knocked on the head and there is much that is new about the addiction to consumption, attitudes to sex and perpetual desire to get on in the world.

book reviews

Sunday Times
“...wonderfully enjoyable history of the changing fortunes of the middle orders over the past 500 years ...a magisterial survey of the entire British class system, filled with richly detailed observation of the social differences on which it has thrived.”

Daily Telegraph
“...a hefty but pleasant read; comprehensive, engaging, sharp-eyed and fair-minded. A treasure trove for anyone who wants to know how we get from yokels to ‘Marks and Sparks plonk’”.

GQ
"Our editor's favourite book of the season. Unputdownable."

Ferdinand Mount, Times Literary Supplement
"...an enchanting compendium of the games the English play, and the anxieties, frictions and resentments engendered in the pursuit of status."

Vernon Bogdanor, Times Higher Educational Supplement
"... a rollicking affecionate romp through the centuries of social history that promotes much thought. Unlike much academic sociology, it is also well-written and enjoyable to read."

Jonathan Sale, Financial Times
"...contains a rich kaleidiscope of wonderful material. It is one of those volumes which should be buried in a time-capsule for the benefit of future civilisations; for the benefit of today's general readers, it is written in English, as opposed to sociology-speak."

Tristan Hunt, BBC History Magazine
"..a rich cultural history..."

Nottingham Evening Post
"...an engaging and colourful panorama of life, meticulously researched and packed with detail."

Sunday Telegraph
"Those who buy this book will find something to intrigue them on every page."

The Book Magazine
"What most impresses about this monumental book is its lucidity and its ability to wear considerable scholarship very lightly indeed."

The Spectator
"Lawrence James is the Macaulay of the middle class, and he has written a celebration which is hugely oversue."

The Herald
"...this magesterial sweeping new history...Its strength lies not so much in its generalisations and conclusions as in its welter of colourful detail and insidious anecdote, mostly aposite."

Daily Telegraph
"James is best on the Victorian middle classes, and all the baggage that came with them:their gentility, their prudishness, their strictness, their values, their standards."

Independent
"James is a well-informed guide to that past, conducting us on a tour from Chaucer to Thatcher and focussing mainly on the 19th and 20th centuries. He has a sharp eye for detail..."

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