Today in Labor History June 15, 1381: Wat Tyler was murdered during negotiations with King Richard II (who was only 14 at the time). Tyler, a leader of the Peasant’s Revolt, led a group of rebels from Canterbury to London to fight the poll tax and for economic and social reforms. They attacked government buildings and prisons, freed prisoners, destroyed legal records, sacked the homes of the rich, and murdered people they thought were connected to the royal government. The king had agreed to most of their demands and had promised full pardons to all those involved in the uprising.

Wat Tyler has been portrayed in many books, including “Bleak House” by Charles Dickens (1853), “A Dream of John Ball” (1888) by the socialist William Morris, “Redburn” (1849) by Herman Melville and “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court” (1889) by Mark Twain. Chumbawamba covers “Cutty Wren,” Peasants’ Revolt song, on their album “English Rebel Songs.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJzHBQIlJwk&list=RDWJzHBQIlJwk&start_radio=1

#workingclass #LaborHistory #wattyler #england #peasants #revolt #rebellion #polltax #prison #dickens #morris #books #novel #fiction #writer #author @bookstadon

The Cutty Wren - English Folk Song

YouTube

Hard Times

"Now, this schoolroom is a Nation. And in this nation, there are fifty millions of money. Isn’t this a prosperous nation?"

‘What did you say?’ asked Louisa.

‘Miss Louisa, I said I didn’t know. I thought I couldn’t know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or not, unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine."

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/786/786-h/786-h.htm

#Dickens #HardTimes #Economics

Hard Times | Project Gutenberg

Guest post up today from Sid DeLong, who explains legal fictions with the help of Dickens and Mark Twain.

#law #contracts #Dickens #Twain #HuckFinn #TomSawyer

https://www.contractsprofblog.com/2026/06/sid-delong-on-legal-fictions/

@ChrisMayLA6 The first time I read those words, I immediately thought of the Spirit, late in A Christmas Carol, that tells Scrooge "It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child."

It may be that in the sight of Heaven CEOs are more worthless and less fit to live than millions of lower-value human capital.

#CEOs #OctopiWallStreet #Dickens

@ChrisMayLA6 Primary & secondary education are almost universally accepted as a common good. They are not just paid out of the public purse for all children as a right, but participation is actively enforced by the courts.

Yet somehow, tertiary eduction is treated by all major political parties as a luxury good, whose consumers must drown in debt until they retire.

If a child learns well, they get praised. But after 18, learning gets an automatic sentence to the Marshalsea. #Dickens needed!

“Her gün, dünün ve yarının aynısıydı.” — Charles Dickens

Yorgunluk bazen yalnızca işten değil; aynı saatte yola çıkmaktan, aynı tempoya yetişmekten ve günlerin birbirine benzemesinden gelir.

#GününFİKİRi #FİKİR #Dickens #Emek #GündelikHayat

Charles Dickens museum condemns his ‘prejudice’.
Novelist held views that ‘cause great offence today’, internal guidance tells staff.
In 2025, The Telegraph revealed that William Shakespeare’s birthplace was to be “decolonised” following concerns about the playwright being used to promote “white supremacy”.
https://archive.ph/oukJS #globalmuseum #museums #Dickens
Nineteen novels that I love

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, "Don Quijote de la Mancha" (1605) Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice" (1813) Jane Austen, "Emma" (1816) Jane Austen, "Persuasion" (1818) Charles Dickens, "Our Mutual Friend" (1865) Virginia Woolf, "Mrs Dalloway" (1925) Nella Larsen, "Passing" (1929) Zora Neale Hurston, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (1937) James Joyce,

111 Words
This is brilliant!
#Dickens
#Resist
Ah, the dynamic author! Despite noting that depth is apt to be sacrificed to breadth in this wide-ranging study, our reviewer, Philip Allingham, can't help falling under the spell of Mark Conrad's "#Dickens The Enchanter"! https://victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/reviews/conrad.html