Consistently setting itself against the cheerless evangelical strain in Victorian philanthropy, All Sorts and Conditions of Men offers a blueprint for the cultural regeneration of Britain's proletariat as Angela and Harry plan a `Palace of Delight' to provide `a little more of the pleasures and graces of life' for the East Enders they have come to know. Indeed, five years after the book's publication, Besant's `generous and glowing imagination' was praised as the inspiration for the real-life `The People's Palace' on the Mile End Road, and All Sorts and Conditions of Men became that rare thing, a work of fiction which made something happen. This book is intended for students of nineteenth-century English literature, history, and the reform movement; the general reader. --This text refers to an alternate edition. (Amazon)
