For years, I have been interested in books that describe the everyday life of the common people. I own many, describing people from the Aztecs to Viking-age Scandinavia. But these books, of necessity, are filtered through the author's ability to find information and what they found interesting or important. Sometimes that odd piece of information you're seeking just isn't in that "Everyday Life" book.
But for the Victorian era, there are books published during the time period that describe all kinds of fascinating daily minutiae. You can be your own filter for deciding what's interesting or important. Of course the compilers of these volumes also had their own opinions, colored by their culture, but even these can be useful and interesting.
Cassell's Household Guide, Being a Complete Encyclopaedia of Domestic and Social Economy and Forming a Guide to Every Department of Practical Life (Three volumes, 1869)
Vol 1 https://archive.org/details/cassellshousehol01londuoft
Vol 2 https://archive.org/details/cassellshousehol02londuoft
Vol 3 https://archive.org/details/cassellshousehol03londuoft
These volumes contain a great deal of eclectic information--on cooking, making children's clothing, furniture, "Domestic Surgery" (which is a bit like first aid), home gardening, "The Household Mechanic" (an on-going series of tips on tools and how to use them), and much more. The real danger when reading these books is that you will spend hours fascinated by the information, instead of finding what you were researching for your writing. Thankfully, they are indexed.
The A's for volume 1: "Abscess, Treatment of; Acted Charades; Ague, Treatment of; Alum Baskets, How to Make; Animals Kept for Pleasure; Animals Kept for Profit; Apoplexy, Treatment of; Aquarium, The; Arable Husbandry; and Asthma, Treatment of" give a small sample of the wide range of subjects discussed.
A few examples of the contents, chosen because they're things I'm researching currently.
Vol 1, p. 102 Domestic Servants and their Duties
While not particularly useful if you need to know exactly what a mistress should do to engage a servant, or what each servant's duties ought to be (the writer seemed to think that anyone reading this would already know that), this did give the rather delightful instructions: "The best plan is to have the order of work and rules for the in-coming and out-going of the servants legibly and tersely written, and pasted on the walls of the kitchen. A little ornamental bordering and varnish makes the placard appear both pleasing and permanent. Any express duty required of the servant should be particularised thereon.
"In order to carry out the above plan successfully, the mistress should have a corresponding table at hand for her own reference, so as not to give contrary orders inadvertently, and thereby nullify the rules."
Vol 2, p. 358 Animals kept for Pleasure and Profit--The Horse.
Stabling--Stable Accessories--Harness, etc.
This section contains information about the sorts of things that might be found in a well-appointed stable. "Buckets are essentials, costing four or five shillings a-piece; and you should have at least two for each horse. Pitchforks, brooms, shovels, manure-baskets, and other like things belong to every stable-yard, and are not expensive."
I was wondering when vaccinations became widespread. In this volume, published in 1869, I found, "The law relating to the vaccination of infants is imperative in its tone, and commands the parent (or other person having the care, nurture, or custody) of every child born in England or Wales, to procure, within three months after the birth, the vaccination of the child by the medical officer or practitioner appointed for the purpose." (page 110). Obviously, vaccinations were expected in 1869 in England.
Vol 3, p. 110 Society, Etiquette of Visiting, etc.
As well as a great deal of useful information (if you happen to be describing a character making a visit), there is this interesting observation: "Of late an attempt has been made to do away with the formal introduction of visitors to each other when the place of meeting happens to be under the roof of some mutual friend. But the new fashion has not become general; English people, especially, are not prone to make advances, even under the most auspicious circumstances, unless they are tolerably certain of their ground."
Enquire Within Upon Everything by Robert Kemp Philp
Another omnibus of interesting information useful to the household. At the top of each page is an odd 'fact,' such as "London consumes yearly 240,000 bullocks" or "The musical scale was invented in 1022" or "There is no darkness so deep as that of the mind." This book went through years worth of updates and changes; a few of them are available on the web for download.
http://books.google.com/books/about/Enquire_within_upon_everything_by_R_K_Ph.html?id=MzcCAAAAQAAJ (1856)
Ever wondered about the card games played in Regency or later novels? Paragraphs 2082 and following describe Whist, probably in more detail than you really want to know.
Paragraph 2816 has advice on taking a house, and 2821 on taking a shop or place of business. This is quite useful information for one of my novels. Even more useful, the book mentioned "The Shopkeeper's Guide," which I also found on Google books (http://books.google.com/books?id=jpo2AAAAMAAJ&oe=UTF-8) and downloaded.
Enquire Within Upon Everything: To which is Added Enquire Within Upon Fancy Needlework (37th edition, 1869)
http://books.google.com/books?id=K7zzJQ0r7XMC&pg
A later edition of this book, and whoever scanned it left a lot of pictures of their fingers with the pages, especially in the later part of the book. I don't see the "Fancy Needlework" part in the scan I have.
https://archive.org/details/enquirewithinupo00philuoft
69th edition, 1884
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10766
Project Gutenberg has "Anonymous" as the author. 89th edition, 1894.
http://books.google.com/books?id=HapbAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
100th edition, 1903
The Practical Housewife, A Complete Encyclopaedia of Domestic Economy and Family Medical Guide by Robert Kemp Philp (1860)
If ever you need a list of all sorts of Victorian household items, this is the place to find it!
On page 10, under what servants a household should have (or can afford) is this interesting advice: "Supposing now that we have our house, and it is furnished, the next thing to determine is how many servants can be afforded. Must we be content with one, a 'general servant;' or can we afford a cook and housemaid, or even aspire to the gentility of a man-servant or a page? Beware of this latter individual, young housekeepers, if you value your comfort; for if you chance to get a quick, clever lad, he will have more tricks than a monkey: and as for the stupid variety of the 'genus page,' it is a torment indeed."
Here, in Chapter V, is where I found details of what servants are expected to do. I felt quite sorry for the poor servants, reading the day-long list of tasks.
https://archive.org/details/practicalhousewife00housrich
Hints on Houses and House Furnishing, or Economics for Young Beginners (1861)
This book has hints for young couples just starting out on how to rent or lease a house, and then how to furnish it. And 'furnishing' doesn't just mean putting in furniture. Also described are such activities as whitewashing and wallpapering rooms. Do you want to describe the interior of a house, or perhaps a desk in the parlour, or a bed in the bedroom? There are line drawings in this book to help you out. This might not be the best book if you're describing stately homes, because this is a book for young couples on a budget, but it has interesting discussions of setting up a household and is therefore worth a look if that is part of your research.
http://books.google.com/books/about/Hints_on_houses_and_house_furnishing_or.html?id=PLBbAAAAQAAJ
I am sure there are other available references for the kinds of details I'm seeking, but these are those I've found that are readily available and free online. I would be very interested in links to other Victorian works that readers of this blog have discovered.
* * * * * *
Julia H. West writes science fiction and fantasy, and is currently working on a trilogy set in a fantasy milieu based on Victorian England. Ebooks of most of her published stories are available through Callihoo Publishing.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
The Victorian Poor (especially in London)
Are you writing a novel set in Victorian times? Do you like to dress in Steampunk clothing and pretend to own an Aether Flyer? Are you writing a steampunk novel? The internet certainly has a great deal of material for both the serious Victorian researcher and the steampunk enthusiast.
While most Steampunk cosplayers are playing people of means, often owning or crewing Aether Flyers and owning mechanicals of great complexity (some of which they have built themselves), they are hardly the norm in the Victorian society on which Steampunk is loosely based. Many people may be familiar with the period because of reading novels depicting Georgian, Regency, or Victorian characters--most of which are set in High Society.
Jane Austen's Georgian novels describe life in relatively well-to-do but not noble families. Many a Regency romance follows the young woman forced by circumstances to become a governess, but by far the most details are those of the well-to-do. None of these novels delve very far into the lives of the poor.
Perhaps the best-known Victorian novels, those written by Charles Dickens, describe a great deal of the lives of the poor and criminal element. You can get modern ebooks, as pdfs, of 54 of Dickens' works at https://archive.org/details/CharlesDickens54Works, or scans of illustrated 1910 editions of his books:
v. 1. David Copperfield
v. 2. Martin Chuzzlewit
v. 3. A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, American Notes
v. 4. Great Expectations
v. 5. Oliver Twist
v. 6. A Tale of Two Cities
v. 7. The Pickwick Papers
v. 8. Edwin Drood, The Old Curiosity Shop
v. 9. Nicholas Nickleby
v. 10. Little Dorrit; parts one and two
v. 11. Sketches by Boz
v. 12. Hard Times for These Times, Pictures from Italy, Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings, Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy
v. 13. Bleak House
v. 14. Dombey and Son (for some reason I couldn't find this edition on archive.org)
v. 15. A Child's History of England
v. 16. The Uncommercial Traveller, The Haunted House
v. 17. Barnaby Rudge, Master Humphrey's Clock, Mugby Junction
v. 18. Our Mutual Friend
v. 19. Christmas Stories and Other Stories
v. 20. The life of Charles Dickens and favorite storie
But I've managed to distract myself from what I want to list here, which is period nonfiction books about the poor people who crowded the streets of London in Victorian times. The population of London grew from 1 million at the beginning of the 19th century to 6.7 million at the end of the century, and all those people had to live somewhere. Many were immigrants--from the English countryside, Ireland, Europe and even Asia. Some came for reasons like the potato famine in Ireland, others to work in the factories that were being built. The squalor and over-crowding created by so many people in a limited area became the focus of many charitable and social movements run by people who wanted to better the lives of the very poorest.
There are many interesting websites about the poor of Victorian London, including a discussion of slums (and slumming) and site about poverty and families in Victorian London. But as I said in the first article in this series, modern books and websites are a good place to start research, but I want to go to works published during the era I am learning about.
London Labour and the London Poor
The best books I've found, which are referenced by many other people in the Victorian era and since, are the four-volume set London Labour and the London Poor (The subtitle is "A Cyclopaedia of the Condition and Earnings of Those That Will work, Those That Cannot Work, and Those That Will Not Work") by Henry Mayhew. When I first began writing pseudo-Victorian fiction, these were only available as rather badly-proofread scans on a website. But now, pdf versions of scans of the actual books are available online.
In the mid 1800s Henry Mayhew interviewed people all over London's streets, and recorded their conversations in their own idiom. Of course we can't be certain he didn't add, subtract and/or change some of this information, but reading these interviews can be very interesting. He also liked to collect data and make charts. Unless I really need some of that information, I usually skip those parts.
Volume 1: The London Street-Folk (1861)
Discusses street sellers of all kind. As Mr. Mayhew says in his preface, "The history of a people, from the lips of the people themselves--giving a literal description of their labour, their earnings, their trials, and their sufferings, in their own "unvarnished" language; and to pourtray [sic] the conditions of their homes and their families by personal observation of the places, and direct communion with the individuals."
"My earnest hope is that the book may serve to give the rich a more intimate knowledge of the sufferings, and the frequent heroism under those sufferings, of the poor. . . ."
The street folk described in this volume are Wandering Tribes in General, Wandering Tribes in the Country, the London Street-Folk, Costermongers, Street Sellers of Fish, Street Sellers of Fruit and Vegetables, Stationary Street Sellers of Fish, Fruit, and Vegetables, The Street Irish, Street Sellers of Game, Poultry, Rabbits, Butter, Cheese, and Eggs, Street Sellers of Trees, Shrubs, Flowers, Roots, Seeds, and Branches, Street Sellers of Green Stuff, Street Sellers of Eatables and Drinkables, Street Sellers of Stationery, Literature, and the Fine Arts, Street Sellers of Manufactured Articles, The Women Street Sellers, and the Children Street Sellers.
Nearly 500 pages of small print, but full of fascinating details. The links below are to pages at Google Books or Archive.com where the books can be read or downloaded. The file size is for the pdf version.
39.3 M, Google http://books.google.com/books?id=Q4oBAAAAQAAJ&oe=UTF-8
51.5 M, Google http://books.google.com/books?id=pmZRAAAAMAAJ&oe=UTF-8
54.7 M, Archive.org https://archive.org/details/londonlabourlond01mayhrich
Volume 2: The Street-Folk, Part 2
This volume covers The Street-Sellers of Second-Hand Articles, Live Animals, Mineral Productions and Natural Curiosities; The Street-Buyers, The Street-Jews, Street Finders or Collectors, The Streets of London, Chimney-Sweepers, and Crossing-Sweepers.
36.7 M, Google http://books.google.com/books?id=G4oBAAAAQAAJ&oe=UTF-8
58.7 M, Archive.org https://archive.org/details/londonlabourlond02mayhrich
Volume 3: The Street-Folk, Part 3
Includes The Destroyers of Vermin, Street-Exhibitors, Street-Musicians, Street-Vocalists, Exhibitors of Trained Animals, Skilled and Unskilled Labor, Garret-Masters, The Coal-Heavers, Ballast-Men, Lumpers, The Dock-Labourers, Cheap Lodging-Houses, The Transit of Great Britain and the Metropolis, London Watermen, Lightermen, and Steamboat-Men, London Omnibus-Drivers and Conductors, London Cab-Drivers, London Cabmen and Porters, London Vagrants and Meeting of Ticket-of-Leave Men.
39.8 M, Google http://books.google.com/books?id=fIoBAAAAQAAJ&oe=UTF-8
57.0 M, Archive.org https://archive.org/details/londonlabourlond03mayhrich
Volume 4: Those That Will Not Work
Comprising Prostitutes, Thieves, Swindlers, and Beggars. A great deal of interesting information on how criminals from pickpockets to burglars operated.
66.4 M, Archive.org https://archive.org/details/londonlabourlond04mayh
If you don't want to read four large books (however interesting they may be), there is Mayhew's London; Being Selections From 'London Labour and the London Poor' (which was first published in 1851) (https://archive.org/details/mayhewslondonbei00mayhuoft) This book condenses Mayhew's large volumes, leaving out the tables and lists of data.
Another book, not specifically part of this four-volume set, but continuing it, is The Criminal Prisons of London, and Scenes of Prison Life, by Henry Mayhew and John Binny (1862). As well as the the charts and data beloved of Mayhew, there are also fascinating woodcuts, diagrams, and descriptions of prison life.
32.7 M, Archive.org https://archive.org/details/cu31924024894481
Life and Labour of the People in London
Another similar group of books, with data compiled later in the nineteenth century, is Life and Labour of the People, edited by Charles Booth. (The title is changed in later volumes to Life and Labour of the People in London). A two-volume set was published in 1889, followed by a 9-volume set published in 1892-1897, and finally a 17-volume set in 1902-3.
Charles Booth Online Archive http://booth.lse.ac.uk/static/b/
Go to this site to view the Maps Descriptive of London Poverty, 1898-9, which go with the later volumes described here. There are also scans of the original police notebooks from which Booth compiled much of his information, and an especially interesting section of "Snapshots of Victorian London from the police notebooks," where tidbits from the police reports are excerpted. (Note: most of these are handwritten and may be rather difficult to decipher. I was interested to note some typewritten notes, however.) http://booth.lse.ac.uk/static/b/stories/index.html
The volumes are discussed at http://booth.lse.ac.uk/static/a/3.html, where it is noted that "Booth included in the published volumes only information that could be quantified, and which would not identify or embarrass any individual interviewee. For these reasons much of the vivid detail can only be traced through use of the original notebooks." In this case, scans of original documents can be read to gain a true first-hand account of life in London in the late 19th century.
1889 edition (two volumes)
Vol. 1 covers part of the East End of London. It begins with part of a census taken by the school board of school-age children, street by street, with notes about parents' occupations (or lack thereof). Like Mayhew, Booth likes data and tables. The discussion of social clubs that comes next is quite informative (at least for me, considering its usefulness in the novel I'm writing). The larger part of the book discusses trades: The Docks, Tailoring, Boot-Making, The Furniture Trade, Tobacco Workers, Silk Manufacture, and Women's Work.
https://archive.org/details/labourlifeofpeop01bootuoft
Vol. 2 - London, continued
This volume discusses first Central London, contrasts the data with that from the east side, and has interesting data about Covent Garden, Homeless Men, and Common Lodging Houses. It then moves on to South and Outlying London, and concludes with London Children.
(scanned two pages at a time, as many of the tables span two pages) https://archive.org/details/labourlifeofpeop02boot
Check Archive.org for volumes of the 9-and 17-volume sets.
Some stand-alone volumes about the poor of London in the 19th century
Street Life in London by John Thomson (1877)
Photographer John Thomson took pictures of various scenes of London street life, which were described by journalist Adolphe Smith in this volume. These pictures are often used to illustrate web pages on Victorian London; it's nice to have the book from which they came, and the full descriptions. The pdf version of the book is available at http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/streetlifeinlondon
London Street Arabs by Mrs. H. M. Stanley (Dorothy Tennant) (1890)
This is a book of drawings of children--some street children, others not. They were gathered from various periodicals which Dorothy Tennant illustrated. The author begins by telling why she liked to draw street children, and how she got her models. The rest of the book is her illustrations. I wish she had included some description of these illustrations; they are interesting, but would be so much more useful if there was some provenance provided with them!
Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/londonstreetarab00stan
Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=ExswAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Once you as a researcher, whether building a steampunk 'persona' or writing historical or fantasy novels, have even skimmed these books, you should feel much more at home with the seamier side of the streets of Victorian London.
*************
Julia H. West has published stories in Realms of Fantasy, Spider, and various anthologies including several volumes of Sword and Sorceress. Most of these stories are now available as ebooks from Callihoo Publishing.
While most Steampunk cosplayers are playing people of means, often owning or crewing Aether Flyers and owning mechanicals of great complexity (some of which they have built themselves), they are hardly the norm in the Victorian society on which Steampunk is loosely based. Many people may be familiar with the period because of reading novels depicting Georgian, Regency, or Victorian characters--most of which are set in High Society.
Jane Austen's Georgian novels describe life in relatively well-to-do but not noble families. Many a Regency romance follows the young woman forced by circumstances to become a governess, but by far the most details are those of the well-to-do. None of these novels delve very far into the lives of the poor.
Perhaps the best-known Victorian novels, those written by Charles Dickens, describe a great deal of the lives of the poor and criminal element. You can get modern ebooks, as pdfs, of 54 of Dickens' works at https://archive.org/details/CharlesDickens54Works, or scans of illustrated 1910 editions of his books:
v. 1. David Copperfield
v. 2. Martin Chuzzlewit
v. 3. A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, American Notes
v. 4. Great Expectations
v. 5. Oliver Twist
v. 6. A Tale of Two Cities
v. 7. The Pickwick Papers
v. 8. Edwin Drood, The Old Curiosity Shop
v. 9. Nicholas Nickleby
v. 10. Little Dorrit; parts one and two
v. 11. Sketches by Boz
v. 12. Hard Times for These Times, Pictures from Italy, Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings, Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy
v. 13. Bleak House
v. 14. Dombey and Son (for some reason I couldn't find this edition on archive.org)
v. 15. A Child's History of England
v. 16. The Uncommercial Traveller, The Haunted House
v. 17. Barnaby Rudge, Master Humphrey's Clock, Mugby Junction
v. 18. Our Mutual Friend
v. 19. Christmas Stories and Other Stories
v. 20. The life of Charles Dickens and favorite storie
But I've managed to distract myself from what I want to list here, which is period nonfiction books about the poor people who crowded the streets of London in Victorian times. The population of London grew from 1 million at the beginning of the 19th century to 6.7 million at the end of the century, and all those people had to live somewhere. Many were immigrants--from the English countryside, Ireland, Europe and even Asia. Some came for reasons like the potato famine in Ireland, others to work in the factories that were being built. The squalor and over-crowding created by so many people in a limited area became the focus of many charitable and social movements run by people who wanted to better the lives of the very poorest.
There are many interesting websites about the poor of Victorian London, including a discussion of slums (and slumming) and site about poverty and families in Victorian London. But as I said in the first article in this series, modern books and websites are a good place to start research, but I want to go to works published during the era I am learning about.
London Labour and the London Poor
The best books I've found, which are referenced by many other people in the Victorian era and since, are the four-volume set London Labour and the London Poor (The subtitle is "A Cyclopaedia of the Condition and Earnings of Those That Will work, Those That Cannot Work, and Those That Will Not Work") by Henry Mayhew. When I first began writing pseudo-Victorian fiction, these were only available as rather badly-proofread scans on a website. But now, pdf versions of scans of the actual books are available online.
In the mid 1800s Henry Mayhew interviewed people all over London's streets, and recorded their conversations in their own idiom. Of course we can't be certain he didn't add, subtract and/or change some of this information, but reading these interviews can be very interesting. He also liked to collect data and make charts. Unless I really need some of that information, I usually skip those parts.
Volume 1: The London Street-Folk (1861)
Discusses street sellers of all kind. As Mr. Mayhew says in his preface, "The history of a people, from the lips of the people themselves--giving a literal description of their labour, their earnings, their trials, and their sufferings, in their own "unvarnished" language; and to pourtray [sic] the conditions of their homes and their families by personal observation of the places, and direct communion with the individuals."
"My earnest hope is that the book may serve to give the rich a more intimate knowledge of the sufferings, and the frequent heroism under those sufferings, of the poor. . . ."
The street folk described in this volume are Wandering Tribes in General, Wandering Tribes in the Country, the London Street-Folk, Costermongers, Street Sellers of Fish, Street Sellers of Fruit and Vegetables, Stationary Street Sellers of Fish, Fruit, and Vegetables, The Street Irish, Street Sellers of Game, Poultry, Rabbits, Butter, Cheese, and Eggs, Street Sellers of Trees, Shrubs, Flowers, Roots, Seeds, and Branches, Street Sellers of Green Stuff, Street Sellers of Eatables and Drinkables, Street Sellers of Stationery, Literature, and the Fine Arts, Street Sellers of Manufactured Articles, The Women Street Sellers, and the Children Street Sellers.
Nearly 500 pages of small print, but full of fascinating details. The links below are to pages at Google Books or Archive.com where the books can be read or downloaded. The file size is for the pdf version.
39.3 M, Google http://books.google.com/books?id=Q4oBAAAAQAAJ&oe=UTF-8
51.5 M, Google http://books.google.com/books?id=pmZRAAAAMAAJ&oe=UTF-8
54.7 M, Archive.org https://archive.org/details/londonlabourlond01mayhrich
Volume 2: The Street-Folk, Part 2
This volume covers The Street-Sellers of Second-Hand Articles, Live Animals, Mineral Productions and Natural Curiosities; The Street-Buyers, The Street-Jews, Street Finders or Collectors, The Streets of London, Chimney-Sweepers, and Crossing-Sweepers.
36.7 M, Google http://books.google.com/books?id=G4oBAAAAQAAJ&oe=UTF-8
58.7 M, Archive.org https://archive.org/details/londonlabourlond02mayhrich
Volume 3: The Street-Folk, Part 3
Includes The Destroyers of Vermin, Street-Exhibitors, Street-Musicians, Street-Vocalists, Exhibitors of Trained Animals, Skilled and Unskilled Labor, Garret-Masters, The Coal-Heavers, Ballast-Men, Lumpers, The Dock-Labourers, Cheap Lodging-Houses, The Transit of Great Britain and the Metropolis, London Watermen, Lightermen, and Steamboat-Men, London Omnibus-Drivers and Conductors, London Cab-Drivers, London Cabmen and Porters, London Vagrants and Meeting of Ticket-of-Leave Men.
39.8 M, Google http://books.google.com/books?id=fIoBAAAAQAAJ&oe=UTF-8
57.0 M, Archive.org https://archive.org/details/londonlabourlond03mayhrich
Volume 4: Those That Will Not Work
Comprising Prostitutes, Thieves, Swindlers, and Beggars. A great deal of interesting information on how criminals from pickpockets to burglars operated.
66.4 M, Archive.org https://archive.org/details/londonlabourlond04mayh
If you don't want to read four large books (however interesting they may be), there is Mayhew's London; Being Selections From 'London Labour and the London Poor' (which was first published in 1851) (https://archive.org/details/mayhewslondonbei00mayhuoft) This book condenses Mayhew's large volumes, leaving out the tables and lists of data.
Another book, not specifically part of this four-volume set, but continuing it, is The Criminal Prisons of London, and Scenes of Prison Life, by Henry Mayhew and John Binny (1862). As well as the the charts and data beloved of Mayhew, there are also fascinating woodcuts, diagrams, and descriptions of prison life.
32.7 M, Archive.org https://archive.org/details/cu31924024894481
Life and Labour of the People in London
Another similar group of books, with data compiled later in the nineteenth century, is Life and Labour of the People, edited by Charles Booth. (The title is changed in later volumes to Life and Labour of the People in London). A two-volume set was published in 1889, followed by a 9-volume set published in 1892-1897, and finally a 17-volume set in 1902-3.
Charles Booth Online Archive http://booth.lse.ac.uk/static/b/
Go to this site to view the Maps Descriptive of London Poverty, 1898-9, which go with the later volumes described here. There are also scans of the original police notebooks from which Booth compiled much of his information, and an especially interesting section of "Snapshots of Victorian London from the police notebooks," where tidbits from the police reports are excerpted. (Note: most of these are handwritten and may be rather difficult to decipher. I was interested to note some typewritten notes, however.) http://booth.lse.ac.uk/static/b/stories/index.html
The volumes are discussed at http://booth.lse.ac.uk/static/a/3.html, where it is noted that "Booth included in the published volumes only information that could be quantified, and which would not identify or embarrass any individual interviewee. For these reasons much of the vivid detail can only be traced through use of the original notebooks." In this case, scans of original documents can be read to gain a true first-hand account of life in London in the late 19th century.
1889 edition (two volumes)
Vol. 1 covers part of the East End of London. It begins with part of a census taken by the school board of school-age children, street by street, with notes about parents' occupations (or lack thereof). Like Mayhew, Booth likes data and tables. The discussion of social clubs that comes next is quite informative (at least for me, considering its usefulness in the novel I'm writing). The larger part of the book discusses trades: The Docks, Tailoring, Boot-Making, The Furniture Trade, Tobacco Workers, Silk Manufacture, and Women's Work.
https://archive.org/details/labourlifeofpeop01bootuoft
Vol. 2 - London, continued
This volume discusses first Central London, contrasts the data with that from the east side, and has interesting data about Covent Garden, Homeless Men, and Common Lodging Houses. It then moves on to South and Outlying London, and concludes with London Children.
(scanned two pages at a time, as many of the tables span two pages) https://archive.org/details/labourlifeofpeop02boot
Check Archive.org for volumes of the 9-and 17-volume sets.
Some stand-alone volumes about the poor of London in the 19th century
Street Life in London by John Thomson (1877)
Photographer John Thomson took pictures of various scenes of London street life, which were described by journalist Adolphe Smith in this volume. These pictures are often used to illustrate web pages on Victorian London; it's nice to have the book from which they came, and the full descriptions. The pdf version of the book is available at http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/streetlifeinlondon
London Street Arabs by Mrs. H. M. Stanley (Dorothy Tennant) (1890)
This is a book of drawings of children--some street children, others not. They were gathered from various periodicals which Dorothy Tennant illustrated. The author begins by telling why she liked to draw street children, and how she got her models. The rest of the book is her illustrations. I wish she had included some description of these illustrations; they are interesting, but would be so much more useful if there was some provenance provided with them!
Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/londonstreetarab00stan
Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=ExswAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Once you as a researcher, whether building a steampunk 'persona' or writing historical or fantasy novels, have even skimmed these books, you should feel much more at home with the seamier side of the streets of Victorian London.
*************
Julia H. West has published stories in Realms of Fantasy, Spider, and various anthologies including several volumes of Sword and Sorceress. Most of these stories are now available as ebooks from Callihoo Publishing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)