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 7
... occasionally through the influence of their aristocratic friends they succeed in obtain- ing vouchers for the most exclusive patrician balls. Houses in which prostitutes lodge are those in which one or two pros- titutes occupy private ...
... occasionally through the influence of their aristocratic friends they succeed in obtain- ing vouchers for the most exclusive patrician balls. Houses in which prostitutes lodge are those in which one or two pros- titutes occupy private ...
Page 8
... occasional absence of which entails upon them a condition of intermittent starvation. A woman who has fallen like a star from heaven, may flash like a meteor in a lower sphere, but only with a transitory splendour. In time her orbit ...
... occasional absence of which entails upon them a condition of intermittent starvation. A woman who has fallen like a star from heaven, may flash like a meteor in a lower sphere, but only with a transitory splendour. In time her orbit ...
Page 12
... occasionally, or sewing, or helping my mother in the kitchen and other domestic matters. I was very fond of dress, and I could not at home gratify my love of display. My parents were stupid, easy-going old people, and extremely ...
... occasionally, or sewing, or helping my mother in the kitchen and other domestic matters. I was very fond of dress, and I could not at home gratify my love of display. My parents were stupid, easy-going old people, and extremely ...
Page 25
... occasionally , accordin ' to the sort of man . What is this Joe as I talks about ? Well , I likes your cheek , howsomever , he's a ' ousebreaker . I don't do anything in that way , never did , and shant ; it aint safe , it aint . How ...
... occasionally , accordin ' to the sort of man . What is this Joe as I talks about ? Well , I likes your cheek , howsomever , he's a ' ousebreaker . I don't do anything in that way , never did , and shant ; it aint safe , it aint . How ...
Page 44
... occasionally, and who, whatever else she may do, will never by any chance infect. I heard that some of the privates in the Blues and the brigade of Guards often formed very reprehensible connections with women of property, tradesmen's ...
... occasionally, and who, whatever else she may do, will never by any chance infect. I heard that some of the privates in the Blues and the brigade of Guards often formed very reprehensible connections with women of property, tradesmen's ...
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