by R.W. Morrell

Radicals, Reformers And Socialists. From the Fabian Biographical Series. Edited by Michael Katanka with an introduction by Dame Margaret Cole. Charles Knight & Co., £3.80. 

IT WOULD BE POINTLESS to attempt to review the content matter of these pamphlets here reprinted, for they have been in circulation far too long to require critical comment. It is, though, a pity that the editor could not have added some notes correcting some of the more obvious errors which appear in certain of the biographies such as, for example, that Kier Hardie opposed the 1914-18 War, whereas in fact he spoke at army recruitment meetings, details of which have appeared recently in the Socialist Standard. 

This book reprints the pamphlets on Hardie, Paine, Burns (John not Robert), Lovett, Place, Owen and the Webbs, and so has particular value to students of Paine. It is, though, a great pity that the essays on Carlile and Cobbett could not have been included, perhaps instead of those on Hardie and the Webbs, for they complement that on Paine and would have given this volume more of a historical balance. 

Margaret Cole, current President of the Fabian Society and author of the extremely dull and long-winded essay on those greatly over-rated figures Sydney and Beatrice Webb which is reprinted in this volume, contributes an introductory essay mainly concerned with the story behind the publication of the original series. The editor presumably is responsible for the bibliographies, and here, at least in the case of Paine, we discover some very slipshod work indeed. Only one specific Paine title is given, the Penguin edition of Rights of Man, incorrectly given as The Rights of Man. No mention is made of the fact that the four volume Conway edition of Paine’s Works is available only in an expensive German reprint and is not actually a ‘complete collection’. Mention is made of the Fonar edited Complete Writings of Thomas. Paine, which is by far and away the best collection, but not of the fact that it was reprinted in 1969 and is still in print. It is absurd to describe, as the editor does, the Howard Fast edition of The Selected Work (not Works) of Tom Paine and Sydney Hook’s The Essential Thomas Paine as containing ‘all the important works’ of Paine as the former omits not only the highly important Agrarian Justice but all Part 2 of The Age of Reason, while the latter omits The Age of Reason completely!

To damn by implication early biographies of Paine such as those of Rickman, Sherwin and Vale is to display ignorance of their contents, but the mind fairly boggles when we are informed quite blandly that Fast’s scurrilous diatribe on Paine, Citizen Tom Paine (even the abbreviated ‘Tom’ is really an insult) ‘is also of interest”. We are not told for what and so I suggest the trash can. 

I can only hope the other bibliographies were drawn up with more care, but space prohibits examination. It is also a pity that no portraits appear, as the original pamphlets carried one on their covers. One also thinks it sad that the book appeared before the truly splendid new biography of Paine by Audrey Williamson was published. This is essential reading for all students of Paine and his ideas and influence. Reservations apart,however, this is a very welcome book and I look forward to seeing the remaining Fabian biographies in print in due course.