Hewitt and Poole’s expertly edited The Diaries of Samuel Bamford attempts a more innovative editorial format than that pursued in the other two volumes under review. They note how, as Bamford’s diary progressed, it evolved into a multi-faceted text: a collage of personal testimony, newspaper cuttings, letters, and memoranda. This working bricolage provides a many-layered testament to the complexities of plebeian masculinities and the social and ideological dynamics of both progressive politics and literary sub-cultures. … Certainly, the diary functions as a site of multiple meanings, providing absorbing insights into the self-construction of this extraordinary Victorian figure, whilst Bamford’s own temperament – prickly, sensitive, forthright, and impassioned – crackles through the pages. … Perhaps most striking, however, is the emotional poignancy of Bamford’s prose. His sombre record of a visit to the Manchester Workhouse in the winter of 1860 where his mother, brother, sister, and uncle had all perished during his incarceration there as a young boy is memorable’. Kathryn Gleadle, ‘Reforming Discourses and Political Practie in Britain, 1760-1872’, The Historical Journal, 47.2 (2004), 491–499.

‘These [admirably edited and annotated] diaries (which also include newspaper articles and a substantial collection of letters) not only provide fascinating details of [Bamford’s] radical activities from 1858 through 1861, but also poignantly reveal the economic hardship of his declining years’. T.L. Crosby, Choice, Jan 2001, 38.5.