The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum - Hardcover

Wise, Sarah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224071750 ISBN 13: 9780224071758

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2008

Synopsis

A brilliant new book about the seedy side of Victorian London by a talented young historian.In 1887, government inspectors were sent to report on the horrifying, often lethal, living conditions of the Old Nichol, a notorious 15-acre slum in London s East End. Among much else, they found that the rotting 100-year-old houses were some of the most lucrative properties in the capital for their absent slumlords. Peers of the Realm, local politicians, churchmen and lawyers were making profits on these death-traps of as much as 150 per cent per annum. Before long, Old Nichol became a focus of public attention: its 6,000 inhabitants were condemned for their drunkenness and criminality. The solution to the problem lay in internment camps, some said, or forced emigration even eugenics.The Blackest Streets focuses on the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century, a turbulent period in London s history, when revolution was very much in the air

About this title

About the Author:

Sarah Wise is a freelance journalist and author of The Italian Boy.

Review:

“This is a book about the nature of London itself.”
– Peter Ackroyd

“Wise describes the terrible conditions dispassionately, bringing out the resilience and self-respect of the slum-dwellers.”
– Sunday Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0224071750
• ISBN 13: 9780224071758
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240