Jessie Phillips

The poor laws and workhouses of the 19th century have had a lasting resonance in literature and art. Best known for her scathing reflections on American society in Domestic Manners of the Americans, in Jessie Phillips we see the novelist turn her hand to the injustice and cruelty that was so prevalent on English soil. Trollope, a contemporary of Jane Austen and the Mitfords, was very much aware of the hierarchical divisions within her society, and the story of Jessie Phillips is a wonderfully engaging account of the struggles and hard-won triumphs of a life lived upon the wrong side of the divide.