The Case of the GBP5 Virgin by Gavin Weightman
In 1885 the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette published an account of a girl of thirteen being sold by her mother to a brothel, where her virginity would be highly prized. The editor was W T Stead, and his audacious scoop was telegraphed around the world. What became know as the story of the 5 virgin - the price that Stead claimed had been paid for the girl - was a sensation, one of the greatest scandals of the Victorian era. But was the story a 'put up job' as the playwright George Bernard Shaw judged it? With meticulous detective work Gavin Weightman has pieced together the true story of how the W T Stead, hero of the moral purity campaigners, fell victim to his own salacious imagination and wound up in the dock at the Old Bailey. At the heart of the story is an innocent cockney girl who later found immortality as the model for Eliza Doolittle in Shaw's most popular play, Pygmalion (My Fair Lady).
Weightman, Gavin: -
Gavin Weightman is an experienced television documentary-maker (producer/director/writer), journalist and author of many books such as The Making of Modern London: 1815-1914, The Making of Modern London: 1914-1939, London River, Picture Post Britain and Rescue: A History of the British Emergency Services (Boxtree).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780956246226 |
| ISBN 10 | 0956246222 |
| Title | The Case of the GBP5 Virgin |
| Author | Gavin Weightman |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | backstory |
| Year published | 2013-04-06 |
| Number of pages | 180 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |