This book reminded me how much reading I've yet to do. I've studied a lot of English history, but I've neglected the Victorian era in favor of other periods. Ms Picard brings the city to life in truly unforgettable detail. Go ahead and double that if you're already familiar with London. What a nice surprise to find the book is not only narrated beautifully, but well written, fascinating, and highly entertaining! If you enjoy the minutiae of history, this is great stuff. This title was an accidental discovery: I found it while searching for something narrated by Anton Lesser. All the splendours and horrors of Victorian life will be vividly recalled. 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.
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.
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. 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.
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