Labour and the poorVolume I,: The metropolitan districts

Real life London in 1849. A journey through the back streets and into the lives of the people in early Victorian London.

Henry Mayhew, the pioneering social investigative journalist, takes us around the capital and reveals a hidden life-the real Dickens' London. He ventures into places where only the very poorest are forced to tread, interviews the people encountered and publishes their words.

In this volume we enter the two-penny lodging houses-the dens of thieves-and hear from the inmates amassed inside them. The Spitalfields weavers, destitute needlewomen, tailors, dock labourers, and the street traders including costermongers, bone pickers, death hunters, and flower girls, among many others, describe their lives, labours, and hardships.

"Labour and the Poor", the acclaimed investigation into the poor of England and Wales, was undertaken from 1849 to 1851 by The Morning Chronicle, a leading London-based newspaper of the period. This remarkable series will take you into the cities, towns, and villages, into the mills, the factories, and the mines, hearing from the people themselves about their lives, their occupations, and their struggles for survival amidst the overwhelming poverty of the period.

Brought to you in its entirety for the very first time, and including the Letters to the Editor, this extraordinary and unsurpassed investigation will show what life was really like in the mid-19th century-on the ground reporting at its very best.