Literature for the People By Sarah Harkness
- Narrated by: Sarah Harkness
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Release date: 05-09-24
Literature for the People By Sarah Harkness AudioBook summary
Read by the author, Sarah Harkness.
From an impoverished childhood in the Scottish highlands to Victorian London, this is the inspiring story of brothers Daniel and Alexander Macmillan who built a publishing empire – and brought Alice in Wonderland to the world. Their remarkable achievements are revealed in this entertaining, superbly researched biography.
Daniel and Alexander arrived in London in the 1830s at a crucial moment of social change. These two idealistic brothers, working-class sons of a Scottish crofter, went on to set up a publishing house that spread radical ideas on equality, science and education across the world. They also brought authors like Lewis Carroll, Thomas Hardy and Charles Kingsley, and poets like Matthew Arnold and Christina Rossetti, to a mass audience. No longer would books be just for the upper classes.
In Literature for the People Sarah Harkness brings to life these two warm-hearted men. Daniel was driven by the knowledge that he was living on borrowed time, his body was ravaged by tuberculosis. Alexander took on responsibility for the company as well as Daniel’s family and turned a small business into an international powerhouse. He cultivated the literary greats of the time, weathered controversy and tragedy, and fostered a dynasty that would include future prime minister Harold Macmillan.
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