The HAPPINESS of the BRITISH WORKING CLASS This page intentionally left blank The H A P P I N E S S of the BR I T I S H WOR K I NG C L A S S JAMIE L. BRONSTEIN STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Stanford, California Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2023 by Jamie Lara Bronstein. All rights reserved. This book has been partially underwritten by the Peter Stansky Publication Fund in British Studies. For more information on the fund, please see www .sup .org / stanskyfund. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid- free, archival- quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bronstein, Jamie L., 1968- author. Title: The happiness of the British working class / Jamie L. Bronstein. Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022022193 (print) | LCCN 2022022194 (ebook) | ISBN 9781503630499 (cloth) | ISBN 9781503633841 (paperback) | ISBN 9781503633858 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: English literature—19th century—History and criticism. | Working class authors—Great Britain—History—19th century. | Happiness in literature. | Working class in literature. | Autobiography. Classification: LCC PR468.H37 (print) | LCC PR468.H37 (ebook) | DDC 820.9/35—dc23/eng/20221102 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022022193 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022022194 Cover design: Rob Ehle Cover painting: Edmund Aylburton Willis, An Idyllic Day, Bedford Art Gallery Typeset by Elliott Beard in Sabon LT Pro 10/13 For Mike and Evan This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 ONE Interrogating Autobiographies 11 TWO The Simple Pleasures of Childhood 27 THREE Work and Flow 42 FOUR Life Is with People 65 FIVE The Natural World 92 SIX Self-C ultivation 106 SEVEN The Way of Duty 124 EIGHT Absent Happiness 148 NINE Sadness, Fear, and Anger 159 TEN The Past and the Present Converse 185 Conclusion 209 Notes 213 Bibliography 255 Index 281 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments Very few projects that take a decade to research and write can come to fruition without the significant help of other people, and I would like to take a moment to acknowledge their contributions. Faculty members at New Mexico State University can take a free course every semester as a benefit, so in 2008, I started taking under- graduate courses in the philosophy department. In 2013, I enrolled in my philosophy colleague Mark Walker’s class, entitled “Should We Want to Be Happy?” This was my introduction to the philosophical literature on happiness, and we really dug in every week, reading and arguing in small groups. The class even set up a “Socrates booth” outside the stu- dent center, where, dressed in togas, we accosted passersby as though we were in the agora. We asked them about their conception of happiness; in return, each of them earned a chocolate bar. The class inspired me to think about valorizations and definitions of happiness or well- being over time, and to reflect on my research field of nineteenth- century Britain, and the “standard of living” debate. Could working people undergoing the dislocations that accompanied industrial- ization have been happy, and if so, what was the nature of their happiness? Subsequent conversations and classes with my philosophy colleagues Lori Keleher, Jean- Paul Vessel, and Tim Cleveland have helped to hone my thoughts about the concept of happiness and the structure of philosophi- cal argumentation, contributing greatly to this work. Peter Hutcheson of ix