SOURCE: Dobrzycka, Irena. “Hannah More—Forerunner of the English Social Novel.” Kwartalnik Neofilogiczny 27, no. 2 (1980): 133-41.

In the following essay, Dobrzycka argues that More introduced a concern for the condition of the poor and the working class into British literature, anticipating the nineteenth-century social problem novel associated with Charles Dickens and Benjamin Disraeli.

In her admirable work on the reflection of the English industrial scene in English literature, in the years 1750-1850, Ivanka Kovacević introduced two samples of the writings of Hannah More: Village Politics, a Dialogue and the story of a child-miner, The Lancashire Collier Girl. The book is both an anthology of writings on industrial conditions and relations, as well as a study of the problem on a large scale.¹ The choice of Hannah More is thoroughly justified. She was extremely popular in her life time, though forgotten now. But her work should be studied for its...