Destiny obscure

In this companion volume toUseful Toil, John Burnett has drawn extensively on over eight hundred prviously unpublished manuscripts. The result is a unique record of childhood that reveals in intimate detail the trials and hard-won triumphs of 19th century working-class life. Besides affording rare insights into the developing child's world of dreams, hopes and fears, they reflect a crucial period in the evolution of a family tradtion; a time when, to counteract the brutalizing pressures of urbanization and industrialization, ordinary people turned to each other for support. Children have seldom had a voice in history: individual to the last, these writers and their experiences take their place as part of the essential fabric of our past.