My Struggle for Life

JOSEPH KEATING (1871-1934) was the son of Irish migrants to south Wales. He received a rudimentary schooling before starting his working life labouring in the coalmines. Subsequently, he educated himself sufficiently to embark on a career in journalism. He wrote short stories and popular novels, and some of his work achieved a degree of acclaim during the decade before the First World War. PAUL O'LEARY is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Wales Aberystwyth. He is author of Immigration and Integration: the Irish in Wales, 1798-1922 (2000) and editor of Irish Migrants in Modern Wales (2004).

"The reprint of this book and similar ones is of great importance in terms of Irish historiography." Books Ireland Sept 2005 "This is a fascinating record of the son of poor Irish immigrants struggling to raise himself out of poverty and the South Wales pits to become a socialist and well-known writer. An essential piece of social history." Irish Democrat 2006 "University College Dublin Press has now published over thirty 'Classics of Irish History'. These contemporary accounts by well known personalities of historical events and attitudes have an immediacy that conventional histories do not have. Introductions by modern historians provide additional historical background and, with hindsight, objectivity." Books Ireland, Nov 2007 "Scholars of nineteenth-century Irish and Irish-American politics should reacquaint themselves with these classics, part of a long running and immensely useful series from University College Dublin Press." Irish Literary Supplement Fall 2008

• Introduction by Paul O'Leary; My birth; My beginnings at school; My burning sixpence: I yearn to be a navvy; I go down a coal-pit; Danger: I hear of Dickens and Byron; My troubles begin; Real overwork; My struggle for the sun; Deadliness of an easy job; Despair makes me think of enlisting; The Post Office; Reporting; I seek refuge in Cardiff; Good-fortune comes my way; An unexpected desire: I discover my true love; My novel seeks without finding; London, the university of universities; My disapproval of London; Paddington Station; A new influence: I lecture at Cambridge; My mysterious visitor; Youth grown old; Lunch at 'The Fountain'; I am a city clerk; Index.