Oh Happy Day: Those Times and These Times

Those Times and These Times

Cover Art for 9780224090315, Oh Happy Day: Those Times and These Times by Carmen Callil
ISBN: 9780224090315
Publisher: JONATHAN CAPE & BH - TRADE
Published: 28 April, 2020
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Links Penguin AU
Editions:
3 other editions of this product

Carmen Callil explores her roots in a book that is a miracle of research and whose writing is fuelled by righteous anger - a story of Empire, migration and the poverty and injustice of nineteenth-century England In this remarkable book, writer and founder of Virago Press Carmen Callil discovers the story of her British ancestors, beginning with her great-great-grandmother Sary Lacey. Born illegitimate in 1808, Sary was an impoverished stocking frame worker in Leicestershire. Through detailed research, we follow Sary from slum to tenement and from pregnancy to pregnancy. We also meet George Conquest, a canal worker and the father of one of Sary's children. He was sentenced to seven years' transportation to Australia for stealing a piece of hemp, and faced the extraordinary brutality of convict life. But for George, as for so many destitute and disenfranchised British people like him, Australia turned out to be his Happy Day. He survived, prospered and eventually returned to England, where he met Sary again, after nearly thirty years. He brought her out to Australia, and they were never parted again. Carmen Callil not only reclaims her ancestors from obscurity but draws telling parallels for our own times in this moving story of poverty, social injustice, empire and migration.

Booko is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

Shop Preferences

Customize which shops to display. You can include the following shops by logging in to change your settings.

Booko is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

Historical Prices

Loading...
This graph is for informational purposes only. Occasionally pricing data is captured incorrectly, through bugs in Booko or the stores supplying data, which may distort the graph, providing undue hope that even lower prices sometimes appear.

Recently Updated