The London Underworld in the Victorian Period: Authentic First-Person Accounts by Beggars, Thieves and ProstitutesThe first and possibly the greatest sociological study of poverty in 19th-century London, this survey by a journalist invented the genre of oral history a century before the term was coined. Henry Mayhew vowed "to publish the history of a people, from the lips of the people themselves — giving a literal description of their labour, their earnings, their trials and their sufferings, in their own 'unvarnished' language." With his collaborators, Mayhew explored hundreds of miles of London streets in the 1840s and 1850s, gathering thousands of pages of testimony from the city's humbler residents. Their stories revealed aspects of city life virtually unknown to literate society. A sprawling, four-volume history resulted from Mayhew's investigations. This extract focuses on the criminal class--pickpockets, prostitutes, rag pickers, and vagrants, whose true stories of degradation, horror, and desperation rival Dickensian fiction. A classic reference source for sociologists, historians, and criminologists, Mayhew's work is immensely readable. As Thackeray wrote, these urban vignettes conjure up "a picture of human life so wonderful, so awful, so piteous and pathetic, so exciting and terrible, that readers of romances own they never read anything like to it." |
From inside the book
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Page iv
... Boys Sellers of Small Wares Labourers on Board Ship, &c. Dredgemen or Fishermen Smuggling Felonies by Lightermen The River Pirates Narrative of a Mudlark PAGE 122 122 123 125 127 129 131 133 135 137 141 142 144 156 160 169 170 171 173 ...
... Boys Sellers of Small Wares Labourers on Board Ship, &c. Dredgemen or Fishermen Smuggling Felonies by Lightermen The River Pirates Narrative of a Mudlark PAGE 122 122 123 125 127 129 131 133 135 137 141 142 144 156 160 169 170 171 173 ...
Page 20
... boys and girls begins so very early, that they think it rather a distinction than otherwise to be unprincipled. Many a shoeblack, in his uniform and leathern apron, who cleans your boots for a penny at the corners of the streets, has ...
... boys and girls begins so very early, that they think it rather a distinction than otherwise to be unprincipled. Many a shoeblack, in his uniform and leathern apron, who cleans your boots for a penny at the corners of the streets, has ...
Page 21
... boy lived, I couldn't go into the streets to save his life or my own—I couldn't do it. If there had been a foundling-hospital, I mean as I hear there is in foreign parts, I would have placed him there, and worked somehow, but there wasn ...
... boy lived, I couldn't go into the streets to save his life or my own—I couldn't do it. If there had been a foundling-hospital, I mean as I hear there is in foreign parts, I would have placed him there, and worked somehow, but there wasn ...
Page 35
... money while he with me, and not spend it quick as some of your English women do. IfI not to take care, he would spend all in one week. Sailor boy always spend money like rain water;. THE LONDON UNDERWORLD IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD 35.
... money while he with me, and not spend it quick as some of your English women do. IfI not to take care, he would spend all in one week. Sailor boy always spend money like rain water;. THE LONDON UNDERWORLD IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD 35.
Page 36
... boy always spend money like rain water; he throw it into the street and not care to pick it up again, leave it for crossingsweeper or errand-boy who pass that way. I give him little when he want it; he know me well and have great deal ...
... boy always spend money like rain water; he throw it into the street and not care to pick it up again, leave it for crossingsweeper or errand-boy who pass that way. I give him little when he want it; he know me well and have great deal ...
Other editions - View all
The London Underworld in the Victorian Period: Authentic First-Person ... Henry Mayhew Limited preview - 2005 |
The London Underworld In The Victorian Period - Authentic First-Person ... Henry Mayhew Limited preview - 2013 |
The London Underworld in the Victorian Period - Authentic First-Person ... Henry Mayhew No preview available - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
ain’t appearance asked beggars begging booty boys brothels brother burglars called carry Clerkenwell clothes coat cohabit committed companions convicted costermongers Court dark detected ditto door dressed entered father felonies female frequently friends gentleman Giles’s girls give hand handkerchief Haymarket Holborn impostors Kaggs labour lady Lane live lodging lodging-houses London look Mendicity metropolis Metropolitan districts months mudlarks neighbourhood never night o’clock occasionally officers Oxford Street parish party passed pawnbrokers penal servitude persons pick pickpockets plunder pocket police policeman poor prison prostitutes public-house ragged received Regent’s Park respectable robbery sailor seen seldom sell sent servants shillings shops Shoreditch Society Somers Town sometimes Spitalfields steal stolen Street thief thieves told took walk watch Waterloo Road week West-end Westminster Whitechapel window woman women young