Mayhew's London Underworld

by Peter Quennell

Genres: London, Nonfiction, History

427 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was originally published in 1862 as the fourth volume of Henry Mayhew's ground-breaking sociological work "London Labour and the London Poor". The edition I read was edited by Peter Quennell and published in 1983 by Bracken Books.

Henry Mayhew was an interesting man. Genuinely interested in the lives of the people he was surveying and deeply compassionate, something that comes across, even through the somewhat turgid mid-Victorian prose.

For me, the major highlight of the book was the interviews with prostitutes, thieves and other outcasts of Victorian society. 160 years later their individual voices ring out clearly making the book an absolutely fascinating read.

This book, picked up at a second hand book shop, is now part of my reference library.

Highly recommended.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-edited version of Mayhew's fascinating first-person investigation and account of the poor and illegal in Victorian London.

[Vincent Hernot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful edition of this classic, even if, at times, the thoroughness of the details can be a bit exhausting.
But the panorama it gives, the picture of the place and its underclass is simply great. At times, Mayhew draws short portraits of a person - through an interview - which gives life to all his numbers and statistics. Such a portrait (of a prostitute, and of a thief) were the obvious inspirations behind characters in Michel Faber's 19th-C novel (The crimson...).
HIs tone is also very good: it's moral but it's not moralising and it's, in fact, very open-minded, certainly when it comes to trying and understand the link between poverty, social background and the underworld.
Essential.