The London Underworld in the Victorian Period Authentic First-Person Accounts by Beggars, Thieves and Prostitutes

The first and possibly the greatest sociological study of poverty in 19th-century London. Mayhew and his collaborators explored hundreds of miles of London streets in the 1840s and 1850s, gathering thousands of pages of testimony from the city's humblest residents. A classic reference source for sociologists, historians, and criminologists.