Description
The nineteenth century was a time of unprecedented change, and nowhere was this more apparent than London, which, in only a few decades, grew from a compact Regency town into the largest city the world had ever seen. Technology-railways, street-lighting, and sewers-transformed both the city and the experience of city-living.
From the moment Charles Dickens, the century's best-loved novelist and London's greatest observer, arrived in the city in 1822, he obsessively walked its streets, recording its pleasures, curiosities and cruelties. Now, with him, Judith Flanders leads us through the markets, transport systems, rivers, slums, alleys, cemeteries, gin palaces, chop-houses and entertainment emporia of Dickens' London, to reveal the Victorian capital in all its variety, vibrancy, and squalor. From the colorful cries of street-sellers to the uncomfortable reality of travel by omnibus, to the many uses for the body parts of dead horses and the unimaginably grueling working days of hawker children, no detail is too small, or too strange. No one who reads Judith Flanders's meticulously researched, captivatingly written The Victorian City will ever view London in the same light again.Author: Judith Flanders
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: 07/14/2015
Pages: 560
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 1.60d
ISBN13: 9781250068262
ISBN10: 1250068266
BISAC Categories:
- History | Europe | Great Britain | General
- History | Social History
About the Author
JUDITH FLANDERS is a New York Times bestselling author and one of the foremost social historians of the Victorian era. The Victorian City was a finalist for the 2014 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Judith is also the author of a crime fiction series, beginning with A Murder of Magpies. She lives in London.