Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300216114 ISBN 13: 9780300216110

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2015

In Victorian London, filth was everywhere: horse traffic filled the streets with dung, household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with "night soil," graveyards teemed with rotting corpses, the air itself was choked with smoke. In this intimately visceral book, Lee Jackson guides us through the underbelly of the Victorian metropolis, introducing us to the men and women who struggled to stem a rising tide of pollution and dirt, and the forces that opposed them.

Through thematic chapters, Jackson describes how Victorian reformers met with both triumph and disaster. Full of individual stories and overlooked details—from the dustmen who grew rich from recycling, to the peculiar history of the public toilet—this riveting book gives us a fresh insight into the minutiae of daily life and the wider challenges posed by the unprecedented growth of the Victorian capital.

Book Description:

Lee Jackson guides us through the filthy streets, squalid slums, injurious factories, and dirty homes of the Victorian metropolis, and introduces us to the heroes who (quite literally) fought against the tide of filth in nineteenth-century London.

About the Author:

Lee Jackson is a well-known Victorianist and creator of a preeminent website on Victorian London (www.victorianlondon.org).