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Of Street Piemen
...a good bit of spice to give the critlings a flavour, and plenty of treacle to make the mince-meat look rich'
Radical Victorian reformer Henry Mayhew walked the streets of London interviewing ordinary flower girls, market traders, piemen and costermongers to create the first ever work of mass social observation, and the ultimate account of urban life - including an extraordinary description of the city from a hot air balloon.
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.
Henry Mayhew (1812-1887)
Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor is available in Penguin Classics.
Radical Victorian reformer Henry Mayhew walked the streets of London interviewing ordinary flower girls, market traders, piemen and costermongers to create the first ever work of mass social observation, and the ultimate account of urban life - including an extraordinary description of the city from a hot air balloon.
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.
Henry Mayhew (1812-1887)
Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor is available in Penguin Classics.
64 pages, Paperback
First published February 26, 2015
About the author
Henry Mayhew
255 books32 followersHenry Mayhew (1812-1887) was an English social researcher, journalist, playwright and advocate of reform. He was one of the co-founders of the satirical and humorous magazine Punch in 1841. He is also known for his work as a social researcher, publishing an extensive series of newspaper articles in the Morning Chronicle that was later compiled into the book series London Labour and the London Poor (1851), a groundbreaking and influential survey of the city's poor.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
November 12, 2015
The chronicles in this edition do help to create an image of Victorian London, and it is perhaps an image you would not normally perceive. It’s about the little things like Pie sellers and girls selling flowers. However, these things aren’t very interesting to read about. An edition like this, I should imagine, would be helpful to someone writing a novel in the Victorian era or perhaps shooting a film. It does provide insight into some of the less glamourous aspects of London life. That being said though, for most people, including myself, this is a chronicling of some very mundane things.
Pointless knowledge
Indeed, very few people want to, or need to, learn about the type of pies sold in the street of London. It’s just not a very though provoking topic. This is not the kind of thing one pics up for leisure, but only on the purpose of acquiring, some rather useless, information on the Victorian era. I don’t recommend this; I think it’s one of the worse things that has been stuck in this collection.
Penguin Little Black Classic- 26
The Little Black Classic Collection by penguin looks like it contains lots of hidden gems. I couldn’t help it; they looked so good that I went and bought them all. I shall post a short review after reading each one. No doubt it will take me several months to get through all of them! Hopefully I will find some classic authors, from across the ages, that I may not have come across had I not bought this collection.
Pointless knowledge
Indeed, very few people want to, or need to, learn about the type of pies sold in the street of London. It’s just not a very though provoking topic. This is not the kind of thing one pics up for leisure, but only on the purpose of acquiring, some rather useless, information on the Victorian era. I don’t recommend this; I think it’s one of the worse things that has been stuck in this collection.
Penguin Little Black Classic- 26
The Little Black Classic Collection by penguin looks like it contains lots of hidden gems. I couldn’t help it; they looked so good that I went and bought them all. I shall post a short review after reading each one. No doubt it will take me several months to get through all of them! Hopefully I will find some classic authors, from across the ages, that I may not have come across had I not bought this collection.
August 7, 2018
"What would the poor do without the poor?"
- Henry Mayhew, quoting a saying in 'Of Two Orphan Flower Girls'
Vol 26 of my Penguin Little Black Classics Box Set is a selection of letters from 'London Labour and the London Poor.' Mayhew, one of the founders of Punch, was asked by the Morning Chronicle to write a series of letters for the paper on the lives and conditions of London's poor. Eventually these short reports were collected in 'London Labour and the London Poor'. This book collects several of Mayhew's stories of London's street sellers and the working poor and some of his later pieces collected in 'The Great World of London' with my individual star ratings for each 'letter':
1. Of Street Piemen (LL&LP) - ★★★★★
2. A Balloon Flight (GWoL) - ★★★
3. The London Street Markets on a Saturday Night (LL&LP) - ★★★★
4. Of the 'Penny Gaff' (LL&LP) - ★★★★★
5. The Port of London (GWoL) - ★★
6. Of Two Orphan Flower Girls (LL&LP) - ★★★★★
7. A Train to Clapham Station (GWoL) - ★★
8. Of the Street-Sellers of Live Birds (LL&LP) - ★★★★★
My favorite pieces were ones from his 'London Labour and the London Poor' (LL&LP) work and my least favorite were from 'The Great World of London' (GWoL). He feels like one part Charles Dickens (who he worked with as an actor in one of Dickens plays), one part George Orwell, one part John McPhee (his sense of people and place), and one part Upton Sinclair (social focus on the working poor). Loved this book simply because it was a great discovery of a great writer I knew NOTHING about before.
- Henry Mayhew, quoting a saying in 'Of Two Orphan Flower Girls'
Vol 26 of my Penguin Little Black Classics Box Set is a selection of letters from 'London Labour and the London Poor.' Mayhew, one of the founders of Punch, was asked by the Morning Chronicle to write a series of letters for the paper on the lives and conditions of London's poor. Eventually these short reports were collected in 'London Labour and the London Poor'. This book collects several of Mayhew's stories of London's street sellers and the working poor and some of his later pieces collected in 'The Great World of London' with my individual star ratings for each 'letter':
1. Of Street Piemen (LL&LP) - ★★★★★
2. A Balloon Flight (GWoL) - ★★★
3. The London Street Markets on a Saturday Night (LL&LP) - ★★★★
4. Of the 'Penny Gaff' (LL&LP) - ★★★★★
5. The Port of London (GWoL) - ★★
6. Of Two Orphan Flower Girls (LL&LP) - ★★★★★
7. A Train to Clapham Station (GWoL) - ★★
8. Of the Street-Sellers of Live Birds (LL&LP) - ★★★★★
My favorite pieces were ones from his 'London Labour and the London Poor' (LL&LP) work and my least favorite were from 'The Great World of London' (GWoL). He feels like one part Charles Dickens (who he worked with as an actor in one of Dickens plays), one part George Orwell, one part John McPhee (his sense of people and place), and one part Upton Sinclair (social focus on the working poor). Loved this book simply because it was a great discovery of a great writer I knew NOTHING about before.
October 14, 2018
An interesting little collection of essays. I must read more Henry Mayhew in the future.
March 13, 2022
Dobre, ale niezapadające w pamięć.
May 13, 2015
At times this evocative reportage from the streets of Victorian Britain feels so close you can taste its briny foulness and glory in its teeming vitality. Mayhew was clearly a left-leaning man, very much after my own heart, as the biographical notes reveal and these segments come from two larger texts: one, a 700 page tome about London's inhabitants, from which the best of these are drawn. The fantastic closing sentence of "Penny Gaff" made me laugh out loud on the tube (where else would one gulp down this delicious treat?), revealing as it did, a real talent for the observation of the appalled. Similarly, his rhetorical question "What would the poor do without the poor?" has great resonance, even in these times. His conclusion on a family of street orphans "Neither of them ever missed mass on a Sunday," shows a lionising of the working classes that is frankly admirable. We need more of this journalism today, rather than the tawdry anti-benefits/lowest common denominator pandering of the gutter press (by which I mean nearly all of it). This is an out and out celebration of a disappearing London and one that is to be held in the highest esteem. Its truths are no doubt applicable to many other big cities across the developed world, but the things that make it uniquely London shine out too. The city felt warmer today for treading the same streets as these forebears had done. Mayhew's selection was that of a gentleman.
July 31, 2020
I had to read the title multiple time to finally get it was pie-men. Mayhem was a Victorian social reformer who spend a lot of time writing about ordinary life in that period. This is a part of that collection.
As a book to read, I found it very mundane. There are lengthy descriptions of all the types of pie these men are selling, which carries little entertainment value - for me at least. However, if you were looking for a non-fiction account of the Victorian life, this would be a great place to start.
~Little Black Classics #26~
Find this and other reviews on https:www.urlphantomhive.com
As a book to read, I found it very mundane. There are lengthy descriptions of all the types of pie these men are selling, which carries little entertainment value - for me at least. However, if you were looking for a non-fiction account of the Victorian life, this would be a great place to start.
~Little Black Classics #26~
Find this and other reviews on https:www.urlphantomhive.com
March 16, 2019
Last summer, I and my parents visited London for the first time. The city, predictably, held me in thrall. The expansive museums dedicated to preserving and exhibiting the relics of history. The parks and squares where all the young ones were out lounging lazily in the sun. The streets and by-lanes, the almost palatial sweep of Kensington Gardens, the knick-knacks at Camden Lock Place and antiques and china in Portobello Road, the improvised musicians and performers at Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly, roads and streets that were iconoclast with their association with literature, cinema and pop culture: pubs where Mick Jagger and Co. would have drunk and talked or even performed gigs and the seedy, sleazy bookstores and sex shops of Soho where Michael Powell's 'Peeping Tom' was set, right down to the spot where Ziggy Stardust stood in Heddon Street. It was exhilarating and overwhelming.
However, all the while the sights, sounds and smells of London engulfed my senses, my ears and eyes were also alert to the racing police cars surging on the streets and when we returned to the hotel, the TV was streaming shocking headlines of stabbings in the bricken suburbs of the city. This, too, was a London that we now knew about, at least in a superficial way, and like any great and momentuous city, it was not without its shades of grey.
Henry Mayhew is lauded unanimously as one of the most astute social commentators of Victorian-era London and this slim compilation of 8 vignettes from his vast work, including the expansive 'London Labour and the London Poor' is quite a fascinating piece of evidence as to why his reputation remains intact. Touted as the inspiration for Dickens' hard-hitting description of the city's seedy and sordid underbelly in his most famous works, Mayhew truly knew and chronicled the soul of the city unlike anyone else. There is a sense of objectivity, of a journalistic emotional distance in his writings that, in turn, makes them so convincingly real and vivid, even unexpectedly heartfelt in places.
The 8 varied sketches in 'Of Street Piemen' paint a convincingly multi-faceted and intricate portrait of the city in all its gay colours and shades of grey. The titular story casts a surprisingly incisive perspective on the seemingly mundane street trade of meat and vegetable pies for which Victorian London was famed for; the diligent, discerning journalist inside Mayhew goes on to explain not only the contents of the pies but also how they can be gambled for pennies by the traders among the poor boys and how much these titular traders earned for a day. This same sense of pervasive journalism is also to be found in his other sketches in the book, one about two orphaned flower girls who struggle with their brothers to eke out a sordid living from selling flowers to boys and gentlemen and the other, even more memorably, wherein he lends a voice to the live-bird sellers of London and how they go about, like fishermen, to catch entire packs of linnets.
Apart from these individual vignettes, Mayhew's scenes of hustle and bustle of the city are even more vivid and evocative. For instance, his words take us into the gaslit street markets on a Saturday evening, with the working men and women are haggling for nick-nacks, clothes and other wares in the markets while the pedlars keep up their cries. Or the bawdy, boorish ludicrous spectacle of the 'Penny Gaff' comprising of ribald entertainments and dances in cramped-up houses posing as theatres. Or the busy, bee-like bustle of the Port of London, from where Mayhew perceptively reflects on how the riches of the rest of the world have been brought to these shores. This was the heyday, after all, of the British Empire.
Finally, to even the keel perfectly, there are two mesmerising sketches that deserve some special mention. One, shorter and crisper, is about a simple train journey from London to Clapham, that gives Mayhew the chance to witness the gradual but insistent dissolution of the city's big and bricken cityscapes and smoke-spuming factories into the pastoral grit and simplicity beyond the borders of the city. This is what we felt too as we boarded a train from Euston to Liverpool Central and we could see the city's steel and masonry dissolve into the green lawns and pastures spreading and burgeoning over the countryside.
And the other is the truly spectacular retelling of a flight over the panoramic sights of London on a Royal Nassau Baloon, one that deserves to be read first-hand to be believed in its giddy beauty.
Through it all, even in these mere 8 sketches that are merely samples of an undeniably greater body of work, we feel and sense, through Mayhew's alternately crisp and candid prose, the different facets and faces of a great city as London, something akin to the feeling of awe and exhilaration that I felt myself when I departed on the way home.
However, all the while the sights, sounds and smells of London engulfed my senses, my ears and eyes were also alert to the racing police cars surging on the streets and when we returned to the hotel, the TV was streaming shocking headlines of stabbings in the bricken suburbs of the city. This, too, was a London that we now knew about, at least in a superficial way, and like any great and momentuous city, it was not without its shades of grey.
Henry Mayhew is lauded unanimously as one of the most astute social commentators of Victorian-era London and this slim compilation of 8 vignettes from his vast work, including the expansive 'London Labour and the London Poor' is quite a fascinating piece of evidence as to why his reputation remains intact. Touted as the inspiration for Dickens' hard-hitting description of the city's seedy and sordid underbelly in his most famous works, Mayhew truly knew and chronicled the soul of the city unlike anyone else. There is a sense of objectivity, of a journalistic emotional distance in his writings that, in turn, makes them so convincingly real and vivid, even unexpectedly heartfelt in places.
The 8 varied sketches in 'Of Street Piemen' paint a convincingly multi-faceted and intricate portrait of the city in all its gay colours and shades of grey. The titular story casts a surprisingly incisive perspective on the seemingly mundane street trade of meat and vegetable pies for which Victorian London was famed for; the diligent, discerning journalist inside Mayhew goes on to explain not only the contents of the pies but also how they can be gambled for pennies by the traders among the poor boys and how much these titular traders earned for a day. This same sense of pervasive journalism is also to be found in his other sketches in the book, one about two orphaned flower girls who struggle with their brothers to eke out a sordid living from selling flowers to boys and gentlemen and the other, even more memorably, wherein he lends a voice to the live-bird sellers of London and how they go about, like fishermen, to catch entire packs of linnets.
Apart from these individual vignettes, Mayhew's scenes of hustle and bustle of the city are even more vivid and evocative. For instance, his words take us into the gaslit street markets on a Saturday evening, with the working men and women are haggling for nick-nacks, clothes and other wares in the markets while the pedlars keep up their cries. Or the bawdy, boorish ludicrous spectacle of the 'Penny Gaff' comprising of ribald entertainments and dances in cramped-up houses posing as theatres. Or the busy, bee-like bustle of the Port of London, from where Mayhew perceptively reflects on how the riches of the rest of the world have been brought to these shores. This was the heyday, after all, of the British Empire.
Finally, to even the keel perfectly, there are two mesmerising sketches that deserve some special mention. One, shorter and crisper, is about a simple train journey from London to Clapham, that gives Mayhew the chance to witness the gradual but insistent dissolution of the city's big and bricken cityscapes and smoke-spuming factories into the pastoral grit and simplicity beyond the borders of the city. This is what we felt too as we boarded a train from Euston to Liverpool Central and we could see the city's steel and masonry dissolve into the green lawns and pastures spreading and burgeoning over the countryside.
And the other is the truly spectacular retelling of a flight over the panoramic sights of London on a Royal Nassau Baloon, one that deserves to be read first-hand to be believed in its giddy beauty.
Through it all, even in these mere 8 sketches that are merely samples of an undeniably greater body of work, we feel and sense, through Mayhew's alternately crisp and candid prose, the different facets and faces of a great city as London, something akin to the feeling of awe and exhilaration that I felt myself when I departed on the way home.
August 1, 2016
Mayhew writes passionately of his Victorian London, throwing off the stereotypes, and presenting us with a realistic picture of the poor, their daily lives and struggles, and their entertainment in the penny gaffs.
As someone who is generally fascinated by books detailing this era, Mayhew's descriptions were valuable and interesting to me, despite being dull to some. The price of street pies, the methods of catching and selling birds, the profits made by such endeavours, and the ways in which these profits were spent on necessity or pleasure, all delighted and enthralled me. They showed me the real Victorian London, and helped dissolve any preconceived fantasies.
It's clear Mayhew had sympathy for the lower classes, and had aims to highlight their struggles through his work as a journalist. Compare that to how the poor are depicted in our media today, and it seems we've gone backwards rather than forwards in the past 150 years or so. It's a sad thing to contemplate, but definitely something to hold on to.
The atmosphere Mayhew weaves into his observations creates a real gloom to London, but a gloom with a certain purpose. Although his accounts of the people were relished more by me, his detailed explanations of the city's aesthetic, whether from a fast train, a high balcony, or a soaring hot air balloon, were completely gorgeous in their originality.
I'm no Londoner, but I can only imagine the joy I would feel had Mayhew written of the streets I travel on every day, and imagining them bustling with the street markets, flower girls, and pie sellers of the era.
A truly gorgeous collection written with a keen fondness for his city; this was my first foray into Mayhew, but I'll definitely be picking some more up as soon as I can.
As someone who is generally fascinated by books detailing this era, Mayhew's descriptions were valuable and interesting to me, despite being dull to some. The price of street pies, the methods of catching and selling birds, the profits made by such endeavours, and the ways in which these profits were spent on necessity or pleasure, all delighted and enthralled me. They showed me the real Victorian London, and helped dissolve any preconceived fantasies.
It's clear Mayhew had sympathy for the lower classes, and had aims to highlight their struggles through his work as a journalist. Compare that to how the poor are depicted in our media today, and it seems we've gone backwards rather than forwards in the past 150 years or so. It's a sad thing to contemplate, but definitely something to hold on to.
The atmosphere Mayhew weaves into his observations creates a real gloom to London, but a gloom with a certain purpose. Although his accounts of the people were relished more by me, his detailed explanations of the city's aesthetic, whether from a fast train, a high balcony, or a soaring hot air balloon, were completely gorgeous in their originality.
I'm no Londoner, but I can only imagine the joy I would feel had Mayhew written of the streets I travel on every day, and imagining them bustling with the street markets, flower girls, and pie sellers of the era.
A truly gorgeous collection written with a keen fondness for his city; this was my first foray into Mayhew, but I'll definitely be picking some more up as soon as I can.
February 25, 2016
This was an interesting look at London as it really was no colouring was evident. Being a Londoner, what thrilled me was the pleasure of visualising many of the places and how they look today, magnificent!
Really looking forward to exploring more of Henry Mayhew's work. It's a great shame that people who gave it one star may not have understood where this is coming from, but I guess you need to be from London to fully appreciate its nuances.
Really looking forward to exploring more of Henry Mayhew's work. It's a great shame that people who gave it one star may not have understood where this is coming from, but I guess you need to be from London to fully appreciate its nuances.
February 6, 2017
This was beautiful!! Short descriptions of the people and places of mid 1800s London. This is an absolute favourite time period of mine so reading a text like this was a delight. Mayhew has such an artful way of describing places, and a particular talent for presenting people. He captures beauty in all the little details.
June 27, 2024
Not my fave
December 1, 2015
Beautifully written observations of mid-19th century London, brought to raucous and tender life with the voices of its tradesmen and poorer inhabitants. I might not have picked up a whole tome of Mayhew's writings, but the Little Black Classic format allowed me to enjoy these few glimpses into London's past without commitment. They certainly whet my appetite.
June 30, 2017
This was a nice surprise. It's not fiction and if you are not interested in the real lives of London Victorian lifes, then this is not for you. But I found it engaging and it really conjured up the images of the time for me as well as being historically interesting.
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February 4, 2017
Henry Mayhew was an English Victorian journalist and playwright who actively sought to create an equality amongst the inhabitants of England and a London. Of Street Piemen contains extracts from his book series of newspaper articles London Labour and the London Poor.
This is an invaluable resource in to the poor of London in the Victorian times. It contains first-hand accounts from those who lived and worked in the city, including some lesser-known occupations such as live bird catchers and sellers. It's quite surprising at times and his journalistic writing style gives the writing a tone that is both educational and agreeable. This LBC also features something which none of the previous ones have, and that's a source guide at the back (none feature introductions or footnotes at all) which gives details of where the extracts come from in relation to his other work.
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This is an invaluable resource in to the poor of London in the Victorian times. It contains first-hand accounts from those who lived and worked in the city, including some lesser-known occupations such as live bird catchers and sellers. It's quite surprising at times and his journalistic writing style gives the writing a tone that is both educational and agreeable. This LBC also features something which none of the previous ones have, and that's a source guide at the back (none feature introductions or footnotes at all) which gives details of where the extracts come from in relation to his other work.
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September 6, 2015
This is a great little collection of excerpts. They are from two large sources - the 3 (or 4?) volume London Labour and the London Poor, 1851 and The Great World of London 1856.
The chapters cover elements of street life in Victorian London - piemen, street markets, flower girls, bird sellers, and more. The writing is fantastic - so atmospheric and excellently descriptive - examples
Some stalls are crimson with the fire shining through the holes beneath the baked-chestnut stove, others have handsome octahedral lamps, while a few have a candle shining through a sieve; these, with the sparkling ground-glass globes of the tea-dealers' shops, and butchers gaslights streaming and fluttering in the wind, like flags of flame, pour forth such a flood of light, that at a distance the atmosphere immediately above the spot is as lurid as if the pavement were on fire. P12.
As one other reviewer pointed out, this is the only Little Black Classic I have found that has an extensive Source section at the end, giving good detail in where the excerpts came from.
The chapters cover elements of street life in Victorian London - piemen, street markets, flower girls, bird sellers, and more. The writing is fantastic - so atmospheric and excellently descriptive - examples
Some stalls are crimson with the fire shining through the holes beneath the baked-chestnut stove, others have handsome octahedral lamps, while a few have a candle shining through a sieve; these, with the sparkling ground-glass globes of the tea-dealers' shops, and butchers gaslights streaming and fluttering in the wind, like flags of flame, pour forth such a flood of light, that at a distance the atmosphere immediately above the spot is as lurid as if the pavement were on fire. P12.
As one other reviewer pointed out, this is the only Little Black Classic I have found that has an extensive Source section at the end, giving good detail in where the excerpts came from.
May 26, 2017
This book is the reason why I like the Little Black Classics. It makes you discover a bigger work and gives you a glimpse into a different time. These little essays about really specific points of the victorian era are a gold mine for any victorian afficionado. I want to read all the other essays now!
October 21, 2021
Sweet and nicely described observations.
That's that 🙂
That's that 🙂
June 19, 2019
I've only recently got into classic non-fiction and some I do enjoy while others are plain boring. Of Street Piemen is one of the latest.
September 1, 2016
Some really interesting accounts for anyone interested in Victorian life or London or both. Mayhew's accounts are split between vivid description evoking the sights and sounds (and smells) of the places he visits, and the people he writes about in their own words. A really good taster which gives me an interest in reading his work more fully.
October 21, 2021
These short accounts of the lives and circumstances of impoverished Londoners in Victorian England are part of a bigger collection by Mayhew called “London Labour and the London Poor”. I wasn’t particularly captivated by this little book (mainly because of the convoluted writing style), but am still happy to have been introduced to Henry Mayhew.
November 14, 2015
There are 8 stories in this little book and I only liked 2 of those (Of Street Pieman & Of Two Orphan Flower Girls). All the other ones felt slow, boring and sometimes even offensive in a way. I don't think I will be picking up anymore work by this author, this was quite enough for me.
August 5, 2015
A very different look at 19th century London and it's poorest people. Very different to what you read in most fiction. Highly recommend to anyone who want to look at that period in history.
November 2, 2016
An interesting glimpse into the lives of the working class in London in the 1850s.
May 1, 2018
If you've ever been to London, it's interesting to see this Victorian view of everyday streets overlaid with those memories of modern London.
February 21, 2019
Some fun stories describing life in Victorian London. The balloon ride story really brought to life the exact things you see as you are landing at Heathrow- fun
March 3, 2019
This book was great because it captured the essence of London at a particular point in history and made it feel as though you were walking the city’s streets. It really brought it to life.
July 6, 2024
Originally, I was a little bored and put off by this collection, but as I slowly recognized the fascinating historical details included here, it grew to mesmerize me.
Originally a playwright and actor, Mayhew went on to journalism and even creating and editing his own publications throughout the years. He found a niche when he started publishing observations and interviews with average poor people working at odd jobs and from their own context and perspectives. These were published by liberal papers trying to expose the poor conditions of the lowest classes in Victorian London, but Mayhew writes with an obvious affinity for and admiration of the thrift and sooty nobility he finds in the diligent and honest men, women, and children he interviews.
This collection includes observations in street markets and at the docks, interviews with flower girls and live bird catchers, and glances from a train and a hot air balloon as they leave the city behind. Some of the writing is almost encyclopedic, but the detailed snapshots of history are invaluable to anyone even vaguely interested in history.
Originally a playwright and actor, Mayhew went on to journalism and even creating and editing his own publications throughout the years. He found a niche when he started publishing observations and interviews with average poor people working at odd jobs and from their own context and perspectives. These were published by liberal papers trying to expose the poor conditions of the lowest classes in Victorian London, but Mayhew writes with an obvious affinity for and admiration of the thrift and sooty nobility he finds in the diligent and honest men, women, and children he interviews.
This collection includes observations in street markets and at the docks, interviews with flower girls and live bird catchers, and glances from a train and a hot air balloon as they leave the city behind. Some of the writing is almost encyclopedic, but the detailed snapshots of history are invaluable to anyone even vaguely interested in history.
September 2, 2023
A delicious little book which beautifully describes London jobs of the past. Delightful!
August 5, 2024
A diferencia de un escritor de ficción, Mayhew escribió a detalle la vida de los pobres en un Londres victoriano. Ver la vida de dos vendedores de flores que son huérfanas, la historia de un vendedor y cazador de aves, etc... Son, sorprendente, muy entretenidas de leer. Y te dejan un sabor de moraleja moral
May 5, 2024
Blind gepakt bij Bookstor in Den Haag samen met lot. Eigenlijk wel interessant! Kan erger 🤪
Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews