The Life and Times of Sidney and Beatrice Webb : 1858-1905: The Formative Years

Opinion about the Webbs has emphasised their personal idiosyncrasies to the exclusion of their literary and institution building accomplishments.

In this account, Sidney is shown to play a more important role than Beatrice in the literary output and there is emphasis on their promotion of working class democratic experience.

In providing this analysis of the Webbs, "the oddest couple since Adam and Eve" Harrison shows that Sidney thought a good marriage should be a partnership while Beatrice maintained that a man should always make the important decisions and the women the less important ones, and she should determine which were which!