LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR (PENGUIN CLASSICS) (PB)

London Labour and the London Poor originated in a series of newspaper articles written by the great journalist Henry Mayhew between 1849 and 1850. A dozen years later, it had grown into the fullest picture we have of labouring people in the world's greatest city in the nineteenth century. This selection from the original four-volume account illustrates the plight of the underprivileged of London – from costermongers to ex-convicts, from chimney-sweeps to vagrants – through a startling blend of first person accounts, Mayhew's perceptions, and sharp statistics.