Michael Armstrong was the first industrial novel published in England. It was also the first novel to be published in installments at only one shilling per month. Frances Trollope intended that the low price would help to get her message into the greatest number of hands, to be read by people who would be so moved that they would compel Parliament to alleviate the plight of the laboring class, especially the children. Fanny wrote in the preface of her novel that she intended to “place before the eyes of Englishmen, the hideous mass of injustice and suffering to which thousands of infant labourers are subjected, who toil in our monstrous spinning-mills.”
She first got the idea to write on this subject after having …
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Citation: Ayres, Brenda. "The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong, The Factory Boy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 April 2006 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16894, accessed 23 November 2024.]
