One of the inspirations for Alison Light's book, "Mrs Woolf and the Servants", which came out in 2007, was her grandmother and her work as a domestic servant in the early years of the 20th century. Here, in "Common People", are the rest of her family-a miscellaneous collection, stretching as far back as the 18th century, and including needle-makers, washerwomen, bricklayers, shirt-sewers, railwaymen, sailors, postmen, domestic servants and, in every generation, paupers. The workhouse casts a long shadow.
展开▼
