How did the class system shape nineteenth century melodrama?  Is it possible to define the politics of melodrama?   It has been clear from theatre history that the stage reflected British society at a moment of immense economic transformation.  This chapter provides a new approach by pointing to the complexities of melodrama with regard to class.  Popular plays such as Douglas Jerrold's The Rent Day (1832) highlighted social problems,  especially the existence of poverty.  The politics of melodrama, however, appealed both to the radical and the conservative. Melodrama was based on a world view that mixed populism and deference, two states of minds that should (in theory) be antithetical.  It was characterised by the continuity of essentially eighteenth-century ideas of social structure which determined its worldview.  Melodramas represented a longing for social consensus but frequently gave voice to the fears and anxieties of the working class. When modern audiences thrill to the modern musical Les Miserables (in its theatrical and film versions), they recognise how nineteenth century theatre can still say something about poverty and the injuries of class division.