Victorian London cover art

Victorian London

The Life of a City, 1840-1870

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Victorian London

By: Liza Picard
Narrated by: Anton Lesser
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About this listen

Like her previous books, this book is the result of the author's passionate interest in the realities of everyday life, and the conditions in which most people lived, so often left out of history books.

This period of mid-Victorian London encompasses a huge range of subjects: Victoria's wedding and the place of the royals in popular esteem; how the very poor lived, the underworld, prostitution, crime, prisons and transportation; the public utilities, Bazalgette on sewers and road design, Chadwick on pollution and sanitation; private charities, Peabody, Burdett Coutts, and workhouses; new terraced housing and transport, trains, omnibuses, and the Underground; furniture and decor; families and the position of women; the prosperous middle classes and their new shops, e.g. Peter Jones, Harrods; entertaining and servants, food and drink; unlimited liability and bankruptcy; the rich, the marriage market, taxes and anti-semitism; the Empire, recruitment and press-gangs.

The period begins with the closing of the Fleet and Marshalsea prisons and ends with the first (steam-operated) Underground trains and the first Gilbert & Sullivan. All the splendours and horrors of Victorian life will be vividly recalled.

©2005 Liza Picard (P)2005 Orion Publishing Group Ltd.
19th Century Europe Great Britain Modern England Middle Ages

Critic Reviews

"Reading her book is like gazing at one of those energetic, crowded canvanses by the Victorian painter William Powell Frith." ( Evening Standard)
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