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
Results 1-5 of 62
Page 13
Authentic First-Person Accounts by Beggars, Thieves and Prostitutes Henry Mayhew. A NIGHT HOUSE . - KATE HAMILTON'S . Portland Rooms , or the excesses of a private party.
Authentic First-Person Accounts by Beggars, Thieves and Prostitutes Henry Mayhew. A NIGHT HOUSE . - KATE HAMILTON'S . Portland Rooms , or the excesses of a private party.
Page 14
... party . Kate's may be visited not only to dissipate ennui , but with a view to replenishing an exhausted exchequer ; for as Kate is careful as to who she admits into her rooms— men who are able to spend , and come with the avowed ...
... party . Kate's may be visited not only to dissipate ennui , but with a view to replenishing an exhausted exchequer ; for as Kate is careful as to who she admits into her rooms— men who are able to spend , and come with the avowed ...
Page 20
... party, anyhow. At any rate, as I was so polite she did not mind answering my questions. Would she stick to it till she was a stiff 'un? She supposed she would; what else was there for her? Perhaps something might turn up; how was she to ...
... party, anyhow. At any rate, as I was so polite she did not mind answering my questions. Would she stick to it till she was a stiff 'un? She supposed she would; what else was there for her? Perhaps something might turn up; how was she to ...
Page 28
... parties effected their escape during the commotion.” What a surprising adventure! Haroun Alraschid would have had it written in letters of gold. The man of the world, who had a considerable portion of the flesh torn out of his leg by ...
... parties effected their escape during the commotion.” What a surprising adventure! Haroun Alraschid would have had it written in letters of gold. The man of the world, who had a considerable portion of the flesh torn out of his leg by ...
Page 51
... parties were decoyed by thieves , blacklegs , or prostitutes , and swindled , then drugged , and subsequently thrown from this door into the darkness of what must have seemed to them another world , and were left , when they came to ...
... parties were decoyed by thieves , blacklegs , or prostitutes , and swindled , then drugged , and subsequently thrown from this door into the darkness of what must have seemed to them another world , and were left , when they came to ...
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