which make life a misery when one's income drops below a certain level". He considered it "a book that everyone should read" and a piece of social history that left one "with the feeling that a considerable novelist was lost in this young working-man whom society could not bother to keep alive". In 1979 Jonah Raskin described The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists as "a classic of modern British literature, that ought to rank with the work of Thomas Hardy, D. H. Lawrence, and James Joyce, and yet is largely unknown ... Tressell's bitterness and anger are mixed with compassion, sympathy and a sharp sense of humour." According to David Harker, by 2003 the book had sold over a million copies, and had been printed five times in Germany, four in Russia, three in the United States, and two in Australia and Canada; it had also been published in Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch and Japanese. Adaptations Stage A stage adaptation, written by Stephen Lowe and directed by William Gaskill, was first performed by Joint Stock Theatre Company in Plymouth on 14 September 1978. It opened at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith on 12 October 1978. A stage adaptation, written by Archie Hind and directed by David Hayman, was performed in 1984 by the Scottish agitprop theatre company 7:84. A stage adaptation was commissioned by the Public and Commercial Services Union for "Unions 08". The play, by Tom Mclennan, is still running and on its third consecutive year of touring. The Tressell Society said of the adaptation: "This is the best production of this important work we have ever seen." A stage adaptation, written by Howard Brenton and directed by Christopher Morahan, opened at the Liverpool Everyman on 17 June 2010 and subsequently transferred to co-producer the Minerva Theatre in Chichester on 15 July. A two-handed version by Neil Gore debuted at the Hertford Theatre in July 2011, its tour including to the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 2018, Gore was invited by Dan Carden to perform for MPs in Parliament. In 2008, an adaptation by Tom Mclennan, was commissioned by the PCS Union as part of its contribution to the 2008 Liverpool Capital of Culture events. It was performed at various venues in Liverpool and later in Hastings at an event organised by the Tressell Society. Merseyside Young Labour, using an adaptation by Tom Mclennan, performed it as a fundraiser in August 2013, setting ticket