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 40
... carry his quids in , which he sent me when he was at his last . Then I lived for a bit in Angel Gardens ; after that I went to Gravel Lane ; and now I'm in Bluegate Fields . When I came here I met with a Chinaman called Appoo . He's ...
... carry his quids in , which he sent me when he was at his last . Then I lived for a bit in Angel Gardens ; after that I went to Gravel Lane ; and now I'm in Bluegate Fields . When I came here I met with a Chinaman called Appoo . He's ...
Page 56
... carry on his depredations with considerable skill, until one day he mixed himself up in a great jewel robbery, and ... carried on; but they either are not empowered to go to extremities, or else they do not find it their interest so to ...
... carry on his depredations with considerable skill, until one day he mixed himself up in a great jewel robbery, and ... carried on; but they either are not empowered to go to extremities, or else they do not find it their interest so to ...
Page 69
... carry out the fraud. The Burlington Arcade is a well-known resort of women on the long winter afternoons, when all the men in London walk there before dinner. It is curious to notice how the places of meeting and appointment have sprung ...
... carry out the fraud. The Burlington Arcade is a well-known resort of women on the long winter afternoons, when all the men in London walk there before dinner. It is curious to notice how the places of meeting and appointment have sprung ...
Page 71
... carrying me away from my subject. Pimps are frequently spoken of, and pimping is a word very generally used, but I doubt ... carry on the amours of London society, and pander is a word that merges into the other, losing any distinctive ...
... carrying me away from my subject. Pimps are frequently spoken of, and pimping is a word very generally used, but I doubt ... carry on the amours of London society, and pander is a word that merges into the other, losing any distinctive ...
Page 76
... carry on their amours with secresy . This in reality I regard as the most serious side of prostitution . This more clearly stamps the character of the nation . A thousand and one causes may lead to a woman's becoming a professional ...
... carry on their amours with secresy . This in reality I regard as the most serious side of prostitution . This more clearly stamps the character of the nation . A thousand and one causes may lead to a woman's becoming a professional ...
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
appearance asked beggars begging booty boys brothels brother burglars called carry character Clerkenwell clothes coat cohabit committed companions convicted costermongers Court dark detected ditto door dressed entered father felonies female frequently friends gentleman girls give hand handkerchief Haymarket Holborn impostors jewellery 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 Road 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