London Labour and the London Poor, Complete in Four Volumes: Volume I: London Street Folk (Part I); Volume II: London Street Folk (Part II); Volume III: Cyclopedia of Conditions of Earning; Volume IV: Those That Will Not Work, comprising Prostitues, Thieves, Swindlers & Beggars (by several contributors).

CLASSIC: NEW First Dover Reprint Edition (1968) Later Printing (c. 2010), NEW handsomely-designed-illustrated gloss-laminated card-stock covers, IMMACULATE smooth-cut text-block exteriors, NEW perfect bindings w/ tight signatures, PRISTNE interiors handsomely presenting the original texts on EXCELLENT acid-free archival paper * Volume I (0-486-21934-8) London Street Folk (Part I): 6.50" x 10.0" x 0.88", 0.84 kg, xvi+495 (510) pp. Volume II (0-486-21935-6) London Street Folk (Part II): 6.50" x 10.0" x 0.98", 0.82 kg, 512 pp. Volume III (0-486-21936-4) London Street Folk (Part III, Concluded): Cyclopedia of Conditions of Earning: 6.50" x 10.0" x 0.82", 0.74 kg, 444 pp. Volume IV (0-486-21937-2) Those That Will Not Work &c: 6.50" x 10.0" x 1.00", 0.86 kg, 504 pp. The Complete 4-Volume Set: 6.50" x 10.0" x 3.68", 3.26 kg, 1970 pp. * ABOUT THIS SET: The classical study (here presented complete in 4 volumes) of the culture of poverty & the criminal classes in 19th century London. This Dover Edition (Orig. 1968) is an unabridged republication of the work as published by Griffin, Bohn, & Company in 1861-1862, to which has been added a new Introduction by John D. Rosenberg. This is the first & possibly the greatest sociological study of the subculture of poverty in 19th-century London. In Mayhew's own words, it is the first book "to publish the history of a people, from the lips of the people themselves, providing a literal description of their labor, their earnings, their trials, their suffering, in their own 'unvarnished' language." Mayhew invented 'oral history' a century before the term was coined, & was the original explorer of a class--& an aspect of London--with which polite literate society was only familiar through the pages of novels. Mayhew walked 100s of miles of London Streets in the 1840s & 1850s, gathering 1000s of pages of testimony from costermongers & street hawkers, thieves, swindlers & pickpockets, prostitutes & vagrants, rag pickers, street performers, &c. W/ Victorian dedication & energy, he uncovered & codified data on the modern urban proletariat. The vast scope of his undertaking & the minuteness of detail make his work a major repository of information on 19th-century London & its poorer citizens.These compellingly readable 4 volumes have long been a basic source-book for sociologists, historians, criminologists. The men, women, & children who tell their stories in these pages are often all but indistinguishable from the characters of a Dickens novel. As Thackeray wrote, Mayhew provides us w/ "a picture of human life so wonderful, so awful, so piteous & pathetic, so exciting & terrible, that readers of romances own they never read anything like to it." * SHIPPING: MNEMOSYNE individually wraps & custom packages ea. of the four volumes of this exceptional volume w/ our greatest care for FREE shipment to all U.S. locations via USPS MEDIA MAIL or via USPS PRIORITY MAIL for a below-cost charge of $14.00. We ship internationally via postal regulation Mandated USPS PRIORITY INTERNATIONAL AIRMAIL at below-cost rates quoted on request.…