Alison Light
Author of Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury
About the Author
Alison Light is the author of the acclaimed Mrs. Woolf and the Servants. She is Honorary Professor in the Department of English at University College, London, and on the hoard of the Raphael Samuel History Centre in London.
Works by Alison Light
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1955-08-04
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Sussex University.
University of Cambridge (Churchill College) - Occupations
- writer
critic
scholar - Relationships
- Samuel, Raphael (husband)
- Short biography
- Alison Light is the author of Forever England: Femininity, Literature and Conservatism between the Wars and edited Virginia Woolf's Flush for Penguin Classics. She has worked at the BBC and lectured at London University. She is currently a part-time Professor at the Raphael Samuel History Centre in the University of East London and also teaches in the School of English at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She is a contributor to the London Review of Books. Her grandmother worked as a domestic servant.
- Nationality
- UK
- Places of residence
- Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, UK
- Associated Place (for map)
- England, UK
Members
Reviews
Professional historians have generally given family history short shrift. It's 'history lite' or 'comfort-zone history'; solipsistic and myopic. Its practitioners, critics say, are only interested in themselves. The family history we choose to write, the past we believe in, is always a selection of stories from the many at our disposal in the past. Family history individualizes but it can also privatize, make us feel more singular. I have wanted to resist that way of 'finding my past'; to show more pay my respects but to look for wider perspectives on what too easily is seen as a chapter of accidents, hapless human tragedy in the lives of those struggling to find decent housing and steady work. I have no doubt that some of my ancestors were vicious, stupid and cruel. I wouldn't have liked them much if I had met them. But why were their lives so hard and what were their 'options', if they had them? Family history worth its salt asks these big questions about economic forces, political decisions, local government, urban history, social policy, as well as the character of individuals and the fate of their families. It moves us from a sense of the past to an idea of history, where we are no longer its centre, and where arguments must be had. It entails loss too, not least in seeing ourselves as representative, rather than simply unique.
Common People lives up to its author's expressed goal. Light organizes the book around the ancestry of her four grandparents. This ancestry is unique to Light and her siblings, yet her ancestors seem representative of the working class in 19th century southern England. Light's ancestors were “servants, sailors, watermen, farm carters...and artisans in the building trade”. Light's readers will get a feel for what it meant to be a servant or a sailor in the 19th century, how precarious life was for the working poor, and just how easy it was to run out of options and land in the workhouse. This should be near the top of the reading list for anyone with an interest in the social history of 19th century Great Britain. It's a shame that most of the photographs and facsimile reproductions are so dark that many of the details are lost. A book of this caliber deserved illustrative plates on higher-quality paper. show less
Common People lives up to its author's expressed goal. Light organizes the book around the ancestry of her four grandparents. This ancestry is unique to Light and her siblings, yet her ancestors seem representative of the working class in 19th century southern England. Light's ancestors were “servants, sailors, watermen, farm carters...and artisans in the building trade”. Light's readers will get a feel for what it meant to be a servant or a sailor in the 19th century, how precarious life was for the working poor, and just how easy it was to run out of options and land in the workhouse. This should be near the top of the reading list for anyone with an interest in the social history of 19th century Great Britain. It's a shame that most of the photographs and facsimile reproductions are so dark that many of the details are lost. A book of this caliber deserved illustrative plates on higher-quality paper. show less
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2882781.html
This is a great work of social and personal history. Light has taken her four grandparents and traced the genealogy of each as far back as she can go. None of them were from the well-chronicled upper or middle classes; she remarks that if anywhere can claim to be her ancestral home, it is the workhouse, as someone from every generation ended up there. She gradually zooms in on Portsmouth as the focal point of the story, but not before travelling show more around the middle and south of England in general. Where there may be personal data lacking, she diverges into intense history of the disruptive effect of the Industrial Revolution on society, the precise details of needle-making, the life prospects of the building labourer, the reality of the Navy in the tweentieth century; and she humanises these sweeping sources of data with moving empathy for her own ancestors and their fellow citizens. It's a tremendous piece of work, both sad and uplifting, demonstrating that historical writing can almost completely avoid the great and the good and still be really memorable. Strongly recommended. show less
This is a great work of social and personal history. Light has taken her four grandparents and traced the genealogy of each as far back as she can go. None of them were from the well-chronicled upper or middle classes; she remarks that if anywhere can claim to be her ancestral home, it is the workhouse, as someone from every generation ended up there. She gradually zooms in on Portsmouth as the focal point of the story, but not before travelling show more around the middle and south of England in general. Where there may be personal data lacking, she diverges into intense history of the disruptive effect of the Industrial Revolution on society, the precise details of needle-making, the life prospects of the building labourer, the reality of the Navy in the tweentieth century; and she humanises these sweeping sources of data with moving empathy for her own ancestors and their fellow citizens. It's a tremendous piece of work, both sad and uplifting, demonstrating that historical writing can almost completely avoid the great and the good and still be really memorable. Strongly recommended. show less
This is a memoir of love and marriage, of a couple adjusting to each other's lifestyles, and then the sadness and grief of illness and death. This is a memoir of Alison Light's relationship with her first husband, the socialist historian Raphael Samuel, from first meeting, falling in love, marriage, then, sadly, his illness and death in 1996.
I think it is beautifully written, thoughtful and moving, but I can't feel totally objective about it, as I remember Raph as my aunt's partner in the show more early 1970s, when her children from her previous marriage were young and I was even younger. So I reserved a library copy as soon as I learned of the book's existence but was quite nervous of actually reading it.
The house where Light and Samuel lived was the same one where my aunt and cousins lived with him more than 10 years before the period covered by this memoir - it is an old house in Spitalfields, on the border of the City and East London (near Shoreditch and Bethnal Green), and it is an area with a rich history of its own. I was interested to realise that I can remember the odd shapes of house and the winding stairs down to the kitchen, and the noise of grinding coffee beans but not the toilet being outside!
The memoir is interesting for what she tells about the man, the relationship, the home etc, and for what is held back - it feels quite short at just over 200 pages and how quickly their 10 years together is over. I liked the dignity and the selectiveness of this - while the subject is someone very dear to my family, I think there is an art to choosing what to reveal and explore in a book of this kind. show less
I think it is beautifully written, thoughtful and moving, but I can't feel totally objective about it, as I remember Raph as my aunt's partner in the show more early 1970s, when her children from her previous marriage were young and I was even younger. So I reserved a library copy as soon as I learned of the book's existence but was quite nervous of actually reading it.
The house where Light and Samuel lived was the same one where my aunt and cousins lived with him more than 10 years before the period covered by this memoir - it is an old house in Spitalfields, on the border of the City and East London (near Shoreditch and Bethnal Green), and it is an area with a rich history of its own. I was interested to realise that I can remember the odd shapes of house and the winding stairs down to the kitchen, and the noise of grinding coffee beans but not the toilet being outside!
The memoir is interesting for what she tells about the man, the relationship, the home etc, and for what is held back - it feels quite short at just over 200 pages and how quickly their 10 years together is over. I liked the dignity and the selectiveness of this - while the subject is someone very dear to my family, I think there is an art to choosing what to reveal and explore in a book of this kind. show less
Light brings the insight and self-awareness I enjoyed in Mrs Woolf and the Servants to a look at her own family's history going back to her (I think) g-g-g-g-grandparents in the 19th century to her grandparents in the early - mid twentieth century. Going back through the generations Light discovers a family history that covers needle making, the Navy, time spent in various workhouses and asylums, time spent in service, the Baptist movement, bricklayers and builders. One branch of the family show more manages to work their way up to middle-class prosperity but otherwise they were just scraping by or not getting by and in the workhouse. One ancestor was born in a workhouse and then died in a lunatic asylum; another was buried in a shared grave. Light really brings home the poverty of the vast majority of English people in previous centuries whether living in the country or in slums and tenements in a city or town. Brilliant.
'If anywhere can claim to be my ancestral home it is the workhouse. Somebody in every generation fetched up there' show less
'If anywhere can claim to be my ancestral home it is the workhouse. Somebody in every generation fetched up there' show less
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- Works
- 9
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 669
- Popularity
- #37,727
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 27
- ISBNs
- 25
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