SUMMARY
This study examines the 1834 Report of Great Britain’s Poor Law Commission (PLCR), asking what sort of role such a document ought to be granted in literary or cultural histories. I approach these questions about the PLCR and its audience through formal analysis of the text, drawing attention to moments when the Report's authors turn to characterization strategies of realist fiction to construct political arguments. Key examples center on the principle of less-eligibility—the idea that the poor seeking relief would have to subsist on minimally comfortable support while confined within the workhouse or forgo support altogether to maintain their freedom and support themselves. Arguing that this principle represents a shift away from simplistic conceptions of the poor that equated hunger-satisfaction with happiness, I conclude that the PLCR shaped recognition of more complex individual realities for the poor in ways that would prove valuable for realist novels later in the century.