Common People

Epic in scope and deep in feeling,Common Peopleis a family history but also a new kind of public history, following the lives of the migrants who travelled the country looking for work.Shortlisted for the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize'Part detective story, part Dickensian saga, part labour history. A thrilling and unnerving read' Observer'Mesmeric and deeply moving' Daily Telegraph'Remarkable, haunting, full of wisdom' The TimesFamily history is a massive phenomenon of our times but what are we after when we go in search of our ancestors? Beginning with her grandparents, Alison Light moves between the present and the past, in an extraordinary series of journeys over two centuries, across Britain and beyond.Epic in scope and deep in feeling, Common People is a family history but also a new kind of public history, following the lives of the migrants who travelled the country looking for work. Original and eloquent, it is a timely rethinking of who the English were - but ultimately it reflects on history itself, and on our constant need to know who went before us and what we owe them.

“In illuminating her own, Light serves up the most powerful family history I have ever read .”

In illuminating her own, Light serves up the most powerful family history I have ever read. -- Penelope Lively New York Times
Light writes beautifully. With such colour and with perception and lyricism she clads the past....Common People is part memoir, part thrilling social history of the England of the Industrial Revolution, but above all a work of quiet poetry and insight into human behaviour. It is full of wisdom. -- Melanie Reid The Times Book of the Week
This book is a substantial achievement: its combination of scholarship and intelligence is, you may well think, the best monument you could have to all those she has rescued from time's oblivion. Financial Times
Evocatively written...a thrilling and unnerving read The Observer
Exquisite...Barely a page goes by without something fascinating on it, betraying Light's skill in winkling out the most relevant or moving aspects of her antecedents' lives, which echo through the generations. the Independent on Sunday
[A] short and beautifully written meditation on family and mobility. the Independent
Intellectually sound and relevant...a refreshingly modern way of thinking about our past. New Statesman
Light [is skilled] in probing dark corners of her ancestry and exposing their historical meaning...packed with humanity. Sunday Times
Beautifully written and exhaustively researched, Alison Light makes her family speak for England. Jerry White, author of London in the Eighteenth Century
A remarkable achievement...should become a classic. Margaret Drabble

Alison Light is a writer and critic. She is an honorary professor in the Department of English at University College, London, Honorary Professorial Fellow at Edinburgh University and a Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford. A regular contributor to the London Review of Books, she is the author of the much-acclaimed Mrs Woolf and the Servants and Common People, which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. She lives in Oxford.

The History of an English Family (bold type) 'Outstanding. A masterclass in how family history can illuminate our communal past. Dirty, tragic but joyous' Mail on Sunday 'Excellent. A deeply researched and fascinating double story: an elegy for lives usually beneath notice but also an objective record of what it meant to be itinerant working class through two centuries of change' Sunday Telegraph 'An exquisite look back at Light's own family history. Barely a page goes by without something fascinating on it' Independent on Sunday 'Deeply absorbing. Light does an excellent job of conjuring up the fascinating squalor of the docks, the beer shops and brothels and the adventure of the sea. I'll want to read it twice' Spectator 'Remarkable, haunting. Light writes beautifully. Part-memoir, part thrilling social history of the England of the Industrial Revolution, but above all a work of quiet poetry and insight into human behavior. It is full of wisdom' The Times 'By turns mesmeric and deeply moving: a poetic excavation of the very meaning of history' Daily Telegraph

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