The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London

By Judith Flanders

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250068266
• ISBN13: 9781250068262
• Release Date: July 2015
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Length: 560 Pages
• Weight: 1.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Great Resource

A great resource for people wanting to learn more about life in Victorian London.

3.5 stars for content; small deductions for the arrangement of the voluminous material (but don't le

This is a superb reference for anyone who wants to write about, learn about, or get ideas for beginning any sort of research on urban life in the Victorian Age. If you're keen on history as I am, it's also an enjoyable recreational read. (I occasionally read particularly wild trivia out loud to my kids, who were gleefully impressed with the mental image of politicians, source of so many untoward smells, being forced to flee 'The Great Stink.') My deduction of stars reflects a small complaint; there is so much material, the arrangement feels awkward at times as the author strives to balance chronology and diverse topics.