Tastes of Honey: The Making of Shelagh Delaney and a Cultural Revolution (Paperback) - Professor Selina Todd

'A sympathetic and perceptive account of a fine writer at a critical moment in our cultural life' KEN LOACH

On 27 May 1958, A Taste of Honey opened in a small fringe theatre in London. Written by a nineteen-year-old bus driver's daughter from Salford, the play exposed a deeply polarised society in Britain, sparked press and political outrage and transformed its young author into an unexpected star. Shelagh Delaney's assertive female characters struck an immediate chord with working-class women who dreamed of more than just suburban housewifery, and her work and legacy would go on to inspire future generations of writers, musicians and artists.

This is the remarkable story of how a working-class teenager stormed theatreland, exploded old certainties about class, race, sex and taste, and blazed an incendiary new path in British culture.

'A riveting book' DAVID HARE

About the Author

Selina Todd is Professor of Modern History at Oxford University. She grew up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and was educated at Heaton Manor Comprehensive School and the Universities of Warwick and Sussex. She writes about class, inequality, working-class history, feminism and women's lives in modern Britain. Her book The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class 1910-2010 was a Sunday Times bestseller and was described by the Observer as 'A book we badly need'. Based on the voices of working-class people themselves, it charted the history of ordinary workers, housewives, children and pensioners over the turbulent twentieth century.