Book excerpt: Francis Place's autobiography presents a vivid and readable account of the early life of one of the best-known radical reformers of the early 19th century. The publication of Place's manuscript for the first time in book form is a landmark in the expanding field of studies in artisan self-consciousness of the pre-Victorian era. The book will be of obvious value to those interested in the origins of the Reform Movement and especially of the controversial reform group, the London Corresponding society. In his description of the rise and fall of the LCS and of the men who composed it and other reform groups. Place brings to life the human feelings and failings of the working-class democratic movement, and his own lifelong attempts to 'promote the welfare of the working class'.