Jack Hilton was born in the opening days of 1900 in Oldham, Lancashire. He served in the army during the First World War and, after a period of homelessness and working odd jobs, became an active member of Rochdale's Worker's Rights movement, where his rallying speeches led to a court-order banning him from further speechwriting. Instead, Hilton turned to prose writing as an outlet, using stints on the dole to hone his immense literary gift and produce his autobiographical novel, Caliban Shrieks.

A chance encounter with an editor in 1934 led to Hilton's discovery and paved the way for a short, but dramatic, writing career that included the publication of five books - including Caliban Shrieks - and greatly influenced the course of political writing in British literature. In 1950, Hilton retired from writing and returned to his first trade, plastering. He died in 1983. The publication rights to Hilton's works were long considered lost until their discovery in 2022 allowed for the republication of Caliban Shrieks.