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 26
... entered the bar , shouting a French song , beginning Vive l'amour , le vin , et le tabac , and I left him in conversation with the girl , whose partiality for the brandy bottle had gained her the suggestive name I have mentioned above ...
... entered the bar , shouting a French song , beginning Vive l'amour , le vin , et le tabac , and I left him in conversation with the girl , whose partiality for the brandy bottle had gained her the suggestive name I have mentioned above ...
Page 28
... entered the apartment and threatened to murder the delinquents if they did not immediately pay more money. A frightful fight ensued. The mas- tiff seized one of the assaulted by the thigh, and tore out a considerable portion of the ...
... entered the apartment and threatened to murder the delinquents if they did not immediately pay more money. A frightful fight ensued. The mas- tiff seized one of the assaulted by the thigh, and tore out a considerable portion of the ...
Page 34
... entered a house in Frederick Street (which is full of brothels, almost every house being used for an immoral purpose). But the object of our search was not there, and we proceeded to Brunswick Street, more generally known in the ...
... entered a house in Frederick Street (which is full of brothels, almost every house being used for an immoral purpose). But the object of our search was not there, and we proceeded to Brunswick Street, more generally known in the ...
Page 35
... entered No. 6, accompanied by two policemen in uniform, who happened to be on duty at the entrance to the place, as they wished to apprehend a criminal whom they had reason to believe would resort for shelter, after the night's debauch ...
... entered No. 6, accompanied by two policemen in uniform, who happened to be on duty at the entrance to the place, as they wished to apprehend a criminal whom they had reason to believe would resort for shelter, after the night's debauch ...
Page 37
... entered was more aristocratic in appearance . You entered through some glass doors , and going along a small passage found yourself in a large apartment , long and narrow , resembling a coffee - room . The price of admission was ...
... entered was more aristocratic in appearance . You entered through some glass doors , and going along a small passage found yourself in a large apartment , long and narrow , resembling a coffee - room . The price of admission was ...
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