This collection has its origin in a conference in 2010 at the British Academy on ‘Classics and Class’. Some of the essays included began life as papers at this conference (those by A. Roberts, E. Richardson, C. Stray, R. Alston and one of those by H.); the majority of the sixteen chapters, however, were commissioned later following the award of an AHRC grant to fund the associated research project ‘Classics and Class in Britain, 1789–1939’. As set out in the introduction by the editors, the chief aim of the book (and the broader project) ‘is fundamentally to challenge the limited existing model of the relationship between classical culture and social class in Britain’. ‘The conventional model’, they continue, ‘assumes that the social function of knowledge of the languages and cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, restricted to a small minority, was primarily to maintain barriers between social classes’ (p. 2).

In particular, they argue that Classics has traditionally been viewed, almost exclusively, as a body of knowledge and a set of cultural products likely to support a socially and politically conservative agenda. This ‘exclusionist model’, they suggest, is ‘almost universally taken for granted’ by scholars (p. 2). In the case of Britain, which is the focus of this particular edited collection, this is largely true (with the exception of J. Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes [2001], who treats working-class engagements with Classical texts and ideas in quite a lot of detail); the role of Classics in promoting social and political revolution in other parts of the world has received significant attention, not least in connection with the American and French Revolutions (see M. Malamud, Ancient Rome and Modern America [2009], especially Chapter 2 ‘Working Men's Heroes’ [pp. 34–69]; K.G. Reed, ‘Visioning the Nation: Classical Images as Allegory During the French Revolution’ [2007, Electronic Theses and Dissertations Paper 3312]). Indeed, in his chapter, C. Stray reminds us that Napoleon blocked attempts to include Classics within the curriculum of the École Normale because he ‘thought it might give rise to radical thinking’ (p. 129).

It is an important achievement of S. and H.’s volume that it succeeds in showcasing a wide range of contexts in the history of British social and political reform where the Greek and Roman classics have played a role in shaping, inspiring and legitimising a progressive and reformist agenda. In an elegant and powerful chapter, E. Richardson discusses the central place of the Classical past in the work of the poet, editor and burlesque writer Robert Brough, who sought to inspire a political revolution among the contemporary working classes against the background of the Crimean War in the 1850s. In another impressive chapter, P. James outlines the complex yet influential role of the figure of Hercules as a symbol of working-class labour in nineteenth-century Britain. Likewise, in S.J. Butler's chapter we learn about the important place of Classical modes of thinking in scientific debates around degeneration and fears of national decline in early twentieth-century Britain.

In the introduction, the editors express their desire ‘to provoke a shift in the perception of the history of British classics, away from a conservative tradition of institutionalized elitism toward a brighter history of broadly inclusive cultural practice and inspired creativity’ (p. 19). While this may be a laudable aim, the chapters, when taken as a whole, tell a more complicated story about the historical relationship between Classics and class in Britain. What comes across most strongly is the slippery, polyvalent nature of the Classics, both as a body of knowledge and as a set of cultural products. As many chapters stress, they are capable of appealing to and legitimising very different groups within society at the same time, frequently with the effect of undermining their significance as a driver of social and political reform.

In her chapter focusing on the role of Classics in the experiences of ‘grass roots’ campaigners for social and political reform in nineteenth-century Britain, L. Hardwick highlights how ‘[c]lassical texts and ideas might simply be absorbed into a conservative canon’, citing what J. Rose has called ‘proletarian cultural conservatism’ (p. 26). In their chapters on the reception of Hercules and Vulcan respectively, P. James and A. Ravenhill-Johnson both stress the extent to which these figures were equally utilised by the elite to support their cause. ‘If individual men identified at some level with Vulcan’, writes Ravenhill-Johnson, ‘he held as much appeal to the rich industrialists who employed them’ (p. 160). In her study of the place of Classical ideas in debates about national decline in Edwardian England, S.J. Butler likewise concludes that ‘the texts of the revered ancient writers were utilized on both sides of the argument, by those who preferred a biological solution to the problem and by those who … recommended implementing social and urban reform to improve the lives of Britain's workers’ (p. 182).

The editors argue that the chief reason the view of Classics as an inherently conservative force in society has predominated for so long is because ‘the crucial voices – those of the working class – have yet to be heard’ (p. 2). Indeed, they go so far as to claim that ‘scholars have hitherto almost completely ignored the evidence for contact with classics produced by working-class people themselves’ (p. 3). Yet, the chapters themselves offer few examples of genuinely working-class engagements with the Classics. With the exception of Richardson's analysis of Brough's classically-inspired burlesques and James's examination of the use of Hercules by working-class activists, the chapters deal almost exclusively with people from the middle and upper classes: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Dickens, the writers of the ‘Cockney School’, the women in the Independent Labour Party, Christopher Caudwell and the Oxbridge educated Labour politicians featured in M. Simpson's chapter. In their introduction, the editors refer to specific types of working-class sources they wish to draw upon including autobiographies, memoirs and letters (p. 3). And yet, the only autobiographies, memoirs and letters cited in the chapters are by resolutely middle and upper class individuals including Lord Byron, Niebuhr, Keats, Dickens, Wordsworth, Max Weber, Denis Healey and Michael Stewart.

In several chapters, there is also a relative paucity of Classics. In the works of Dickens and Coleridge and in the curriculum of the Workers’ Educational Association, we are told that Classical references and detailed engagement with the ancient world are limited. M. Simpson maintains that the effect of a prolonged Classical education on leading 1960s Labour politicians was primarily ‘subterranean and psychologically unconscious’ (p. 18). Arguably, the chapters tell us as much about Classical absences as Classical presences. The editors may have wanted to produce a volume displaying ‘a brighter history of broadly inclusive cultural practice and inspired creativity’ (p. 19). The history which emerges is a different one – darker, yet just as rich, one of multiple and often contradictory meanings. E. Richardson sums it up eloquently, ‘The dialogue between classics and class is altogether more elusive than it might at first seem: even the most strident texts, even the most “ardent haters”, are veined with contradictions, accommodations, censorship and self-sabotage’ (p. 83). To render this elusive, complex dialogue more visible and graspable for the reader is the real achievement of S. and H.’s volume.