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 4
... seldom leads the female to abandon herself to the other sex. It is a vulgar error, and a popular delusion, that the life of a prostitute is as revolting to herself, as it appears to the moralist sternly lamenting over the condition of ...
... seldom leads the female to abandon herself to the other sex. It is a vulgar error, and a popular delusion, that the life of a prostitute is as revolting to herself, as it appears to the moralist sternly lamenting over the condition of ...
Page 16
... seldom that they can, from their innate reck- lessness and acquired improvidence. It is very common, too, for them to lend their bonnets and their dresses to their friends. If a woman of this description is voluble and garrulous, she is ...
... seldom that they can, from their innate reck- lessness and acquired improvidence. It is very common, too, for them to lend their bonnets and their dresses to their friends. If a woman of this description is voluble and garrulous, she is ...
Page 17
... a week , dresses not so often ; she liked the casinos , and was charmed with Cremorne ; she hated walking up and down the Haymarket , and seldom did it without she wanted money very much. She THE LONDON UNDERWORLD IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD ...
... a week , dresses not so often ; she liked the casinos , and was charmed with Cremorne ; she hated walking up and down the Haymarket , and seldom did it without she wanted money very much. She THE LONDON UNDERWORLD IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD ...
Page 18
Authentic First-Person Accounts by Beggars, Thieves and Prostitutes Henry Mayhew. seldom did it without she wanted money very much. She liked the Holborn better than the Argyll, and always danced. Board Lodgers. Board lodgers are those ...
Authentic First-Person Accounts by Beggars, Thieves and Prostitutes Henry Mayhew. seldom did it without she wanted money very much. She liked the Holborn better than the Argyll, and always danced. Board Lodgers. Board lodgers are those ...
Page 19
... seldom if ever allowed to go out, and then not without being watched. Why was this? Because she would “cut it” if she got a chance, they knew that very well, and took very good care she shouldn't have much opportunity. Their house was ...
... seldom if ever allowed to go out, and then not without being watched. Why was this? Because she would “cut it” if she got a chance, they knew that very well, and took very good care she shouldn't have much opportunity. Their house 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