London labour and the London poor

Description:

An extraordinary work of investigative journalism, literature, and sociology, London Labour and the London Poor originated in a series of articles for a local newspaper and grew into a massive record of the daily life of Victorian London's underclass. By turns alarming, touching, and funny, the pages of London Labour and the London Poor exposed a previously hidden world. Henry Mayhew conducted hundreds of interviews that provided a first-hand account of costermongers and street-sellers, of sewer-scavengers and chimney-sweeps, creating an intimate and detailed portrait that offered unprecedented insight into their day-to-day struggle for survival. Combined with Mayhew's comprehensive data gathering, these stories have an immediacy that owes much to his sympathetic understanding and effective literary style. This new selection offers a cross-section of the original volumes and their evocative illustrations, including among other features an introduction by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst that illuminates Mayhew's life and career, the genesis and development of the book, and its influence on contemporaries such as Dickens and Kingsley. - Publisher.

subjects: Poor, england, london,  London (england), social conditions,  Working poor,  History,  Social conditions,  London (england), history,  Long Now Manual for Civilization,  Poverty,  Social Conditions,  Public Health,  Work,  Employment,  Prostitution,  Working class, great britain,  Crime, great britain,  Prostitution, great britain,  Charities, great britain,  Poor,  Working class,  Crime

Places: England,  London,  London (England)

Times: 19th century,  Late 1850s London