Introduction

Biography

Gerald was the son of ca­nal boat­man Will­iam and his wife Mary, and hus­band of Ro­si­na Jane Knowles.

He went to work for a silk ma­nu­fac­tur­er at age eight. Af­ter the fac­to­ry burned down, Mas­sey be­gan work plait­ing straw.

Having had to earn my own dear bread by the eter­nal cheap­en­ing of flesh and blood thus ear­ly, I nev­er knew what child­hood meant. I had no child­hood. Ev­er since I can re­mem­ber, I have had the ach­ing fear of want, throb­bing heart and brow. The cur­rents of my life were ear­ly poi­soned, and few, me­thinks, would pass un­scathed through the scenes and cir­cum­stan­ces in which I have lived; none, if they were as cu­ri­ous and pre­co­cious as I was.

The child comes into the world like a new coin with the stamp of God upon it…the poor man’s child [is] hus­tled and sweat­ed down in this bag of so­cie­ty to get wealth out of it…so is the im­age of God worn from heart and brow, and day by day the child re­cedes de­vil-ward.

I look back now with won­der, not that so few es­cape, but that any es­cape at all, to win a nob­ler growth for their hu­man­ity. So blight­ing are the in­flu­en­ces which sur­round thou­sands in ear­ly life, to which I can bear such bit­ter tes­ti­mo­ny.

Despite his hard be­gin­nings, Mas­sey learned to read at a pen­ny school, with the Bi­ble and Bun­yan be­ing his prin­ci­pal re­sourc­es. Af­ter­ward he ob­tained ac­cess to Rob­in­son Cru­soe and a few Wes­ley­an tracts left at his cot­tage.

These con­sti­tut­ed his on­ly sour­ces un­til he went to Lon­don , at age 15. With ac­cess to more read­ing ma­te­ri­al, he flour­ished, ab­sorb­ing the clas­sics and oth­er in­flu­enc­es.

In 1849, Mas­sey start­ed a cheap jour­nal, The Spir­it of Free­dom, writ­ten en­tire­ly by work­ing­men. He was fired from five dif­fer­ent jobs for pub­lish­ing it, but he was com­mit­ted to the cause of the la­bor­er.

He even­tu­al­ly went on to publ­ish po­et­ry, as well. He is par­ti­cu­lar­ly known for his 6-vol­ume tri­lo­gy on the ori­gin of re­li­gions.

Works

• Po­ems and Ball­ads (New York, in­ter ali­bi: J. C. Der­by, 1854)
• Poems (Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts: Tick­nor & Fields, 1866)
• A Tale of Eter­ni­ty and Oth­er Po­ems (Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts: Fields & Os­good, 1870)
• A Book of the Be­gin­nings (Lon­don: Will­iams and Nor­gate, 1881)
• The Na­tur­al Ge­ne­sis (Lon­don: Will­iams and Nor­gate, 1883)
• Ancient Egypt (Lon­don: T. Fish­er Un­win, 1907)