London Labour and the London Poor
$24.95
- Paperback
528 pages
- Release Date
31 March 2012
Summary
‘I go about the street with water-creases crying, “Four bunches a penny, water-creases.”’
London Labour and the London Poor is an extraordinary work of investigative journalism, a work of literature, and a groundbreaking work of sociology. Mayhew conducted hundreds of interviews with London’s street traders, entertainers, thieves and beggars which revealed that the ‘two nations’ of rich and poor in Victorian Britain were much closer than many people thought.
By turns alarming,…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780199697571 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0199697574 |
| Author: | Henry Mayhew, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
| Imprint: | Oxford University Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 528 |
| Release Date: | 31 March 2012 |
| Weight: | 358g |
| Dimensions: | 25mm x 128mm x 195mm |
| Series: | Oxford World's Classics |
Critics Review
“superb new edition” –Ian Thomson, Evening Standard 02/12/2010
Review from previous edition Robert Douglas-Fairhurst has a strong sense of the contradictory forces at work in Mayhew's writing, which he compares successively to a peep show, a collection of dramatic monologues and an early work of sociology...this selection is still as long as a fair-sized novel, with helpful notes and a springy, suggestive introduction that captures the energy and variety of Mayhew's world.'John Bowen, TLS 17/12/2010Should be required reading not just for lovers of Dickens, but for anyone who wishes to understand how our nineteenth century truly was.‘Simon Heffer, Telegraph 14/01/2011superb new edition'Ian Thomson, Evening Standard 02/12/2010superb introduction’Michael Dirda, Washington Post 26/01/2011`some of the best descriptive writing in the English language’Roy Hattersley, New Statesman 18/10/2010
Henry Mayhew
Henry Mayhew was a journalist, novelist, dramatist, and social investigator, born in London in 1812. He was one of the founding editors of Punch and went on to produce some of the most important journalism of the nineteenth century. His series of articles on ‘Labour and the Poor’ attracted wide notice and eventually grew into a massive four-volume work. He died in 1887.
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst writes regularly for the Daily Telegraph and Times Literary Supplement and has previously edited Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books and Great Expectations for OWC. He is the author of Victorian Afterlives: the Shaping of Influence in Nineteenth-Century Literature.
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