• London Labour and the London Poor

  • By: Henry Mayhew
  • Narrated by: David Timson
  • Length: 27 hrs and 14 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (14 ratings)

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London Labour and the London Poor  By  cover art

London Labour and the London Poor

By: Henry Mayhew
Narrated by: David Timson
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Publisher's summary

London Labour and the London Poor is a rare and fascinating insight into the lives and struggles of the 19th-century poor. Written by journalist and reformer Henry Mayhew, a founder and editor of the satirical magazine Punch, it collects hundreds of testimonials from the lower strata of Victorian society. We encounter street entertainers, 'pure finders', cabinetmakers, gingerbread sellers, 'screeve-fakers', swindlers, and burglars. We hear accounts from toshers finding items in sewers, people attempting to train pigs to dance, and witness the sale of everything from gilt watches and chickweed to needles, dog collars, and eel soup. It is a remarkable work, said to have inspired the socially conscious fiction of Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray, who described it as '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'.

Public Domain (P)2018 Naxos Audiobooks
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

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THE BEST BOOK ON VICTORIAN LONDON

I’ve bought them all and this is by far and away the best. The interviews with actual Victorians are beautifully narrated and it takes you back in time.

Most other books get bogged down with data. This actually has life and feeling. Just wonderful.

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For the love of Victorian England

A must listen for anybody who loves Sherlock Holmes. Mayhew adds a colorful backdrop to the worlds of Dickens, Shelly and Stoker. His observations are applicable today. A must read. The audible version adds a depth of flavor that can’t truly be expressed any other way.

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