Erb

by William Pett Ridge

The Mr. Pett Ridge is a capital humourist, and incomparable in his own way as an observer of the characteristics of the lower middle classes, their pathetic little bits of pride, their harmless vanities, and the odd manners, which do not irritate us, because we look on them from a distance. He is at his best in short his method is hardly broad enough, nor his material rich enough for a novel. There is much that is improbable and far-fetched in his descriptions, when he ventures outside the world he knows so well. He is more at home in Bermondsey than in Eaton Square. The character of "Erb" otherwise Herbert Barnes, carman, Socialist leader, park orator, and labour agitator, is admirably drawn and developed, within its natural limitations, throughout the whole book. He is not altogether pleasant, being pathetically vulgar, in spite of his intelligence, his quick perceptions, and his quiet self-respect. The offensiveness of the cockney is in no way softened, the irritating style of repartee, the defiant assurance that is at heart so ill at ease in the presence of superiors, all the half-touching, half-humorous weaknesses of his class are in "Erb". But he has brains, and the power of influencing men, and a fine sense of honour, and we leave him at the end of the book, cultivating the aspiration of his "h's" under the guidance of the charming teacher of elocution who becomes his wife; a very much pleasanter if less ambitious "Erb" than at the beginning. Louisa, Erb's sister, an honest, self-denying, sharp-tongued, vulgar little factory girl, is a creation of which any author might well be proud.
— The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, Volume 96 [1904]

314 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2015