ABSTRACT
Arthur Leslie Morton (b. 1903) began his career as a schooltecher, including a spell at A.S. Neill’s progressive school, Summerhill. He joined the Communist Party in the late 1920s, and went to work for the ‘Daily Worker’ – as Proprietor, and as a reporter and sub-editor among other capacities – from 1934 to 1937. Soon afterwards he wrote his pioneer Marxist study, ‘A People’s History of England’, which has gone through many printings since Victor Gollancz first published it as a Left Book Club choice in 1938. In addition to distinguished service in Communist Party activities and Marxist education, he has published many further books including ‘Language of Men’ (essays, 1946), ‘The English Utopia’ (1952). ‘The British Labour Movement 1770–1920’ (1956), ‘The World of the Ranters’ (1970), and ‘Collected Poems’ (1977). ‘Rebels and Their Causes’, a festschrift for A.L. Morton edited by Maurice Cornforth, appeared in 1978.
