A brave, disciplined book about longing; not sexual longing as such but the endless longing of the under-privileged that history (and life) be different from what it has been and what it still is' John Berger

Carolyn Steedman was born in 1947 and grew up in South London. Her first book, The Tidy House (Virago 1983) was the winner of the 1983 Fawcett Society Book Award. She lives in Leamington Spa and is Professor in the History Department at the University of Warwick