London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew

London Labour and the London Poor was an extremely important book of the Victorian era and is still used as a textbook on Victorian working-class life.

It was the first book of its kind, examining in great, almost forensic, detail the lives of the poor people of London.

It can with great reason be called ground-breaking because it was the first systemic examination of how the poor of London lived and worked.

It is a readable as a novel, so well-written and sympathetically drawn are the real people that Mayhew captured in print for the very first time.

This edition has been edited by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst who has done an excellent job in selecting items from the original two volumes. It includes some of the original illustrations, too.

It contains an introduction to Henry Mayhew and reveals how and why the book came to be written.

It is in paperback and costs £8.99 and is published by the OUP. It is published on 12th April and will be available from the That's Books bookshop.