London Labour and the London Poor

Henry Mayhew

oct 2010 · OUP Oxford

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'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, touching, and funny, the pages of London Labour and the London Poor exposed a previously hidden world to view. The first-hand accounts of costermongers and street-sellers, of sewer-scavenger and chimney-sweep, are intimate and detailed and provide an unprecedented insight into their day-to-day struggle for survival. Combined with Mayhew's obsessive data gathering, these stories have an immediacy that owes much to his sympathetic understanding and highly effective literary style. This new selection offers a cross-section of the original volumes and their evocative illustrations, and includes an illuminating introduction to Henry Mayhew and the genesis and influence of his work. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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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 (OUP, 2002).