 As the historian Michael Postan describes , the revolt became famous " as a landmark in social development and [ as ] a typical instance of working @-@ class revolt against oppression " , and was widely used in 19th and 20th century socialist literature . William Morris built on Chaucer in his novel A Dream of John Ball , published in 1888 , creating a narrator who was openly sympathetic to the peasant cause , albeit a 19th @-@ century persona taken back to the 14th century by a dream . The story ends with a prophecy that socialist ideals will one day be successful . In turn , this representation of the revolt influenced Morris 's utopian socialist News from Nowhere . Florence Converse used the revolt in her novel Long Will in 1903 . Later 20th century socialists continued to draw parallels between the revolt and contemporary political struggles , including during the arguments over the introduction of the Community Charge in the United Kingdom during the 1980s . 
