Victorian London by Liza Picard

Victorian London by Liza Picard

Like her previous books, this book is the product of the author's passionate interest in the realities of everyday life - and the conditions in which most people lived - so often left out of history books. This period of mid Victorian London covers a huge span: Victoria's wedding and the place of the royals in popular esteem; how the very poor lived, the underworld, prostitution, crime, prisons and transportation; the public utilities - Bazalgette on sewers and road design, Chadwick on pollution and sanitation; private charities - Peabody, Burdett Coutts - and workhouses; new terraced housing and transport, trains, omnibuses and the Underground; furniture and decor; families and the position of women; the prosperous middle classes and their new shops, e.g. Peter Jones, Harrods; entertaining and servants, food and drink; unlimited liability and bankruptcy; the rich, the marriage market, taxes and anti-semitism; the Empire, recruitment and press-gangs. The period begins with the closing of the Fleet and Marshalsea prisons and ends with the first (steam-operated) Underground trains and the first Gilbert & Sullivan. All the splendours and horrors of Victorian life will be vividly recalled.

Reading her book is like gazing at one of those energetic, crowded canvanses by the Victorian painter William Powell Frith- THE EVENING STANDARD - AN Wilson

She is an engaging companion, always wondering out loud about the sort of questions which you've asked yourself........an enjoyable book. - THE SPECTATOR - Philip Hensher

Picard enjoys recounting the gruesome daily mechanics of living in what Cobbett described as 'the great wen' - NEW STATESMAN - Tristrum Hunt

'Picard is particularly good on the sort of thing that contemporary chronicles didn't always think to put in..... a very welcome addition to the skyline - THE GUARDIAN - Adam Newey

This book is a feast of tit-bits, bringing 19th-century London to life piecemeal with the accumulation of facts. - THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH - Jad Adams

Liza Picard shares Victorian Londoners' enthusiasm for their bits and bobs. - THE DAILY TELEGRAPH - Kate Summerscale

She writes the old history, descriptive and unanalytical, painted in exhilarating colours. Victorian London, finest example of the greatest urban age since the Renaissance, was made for her. - THE SUNDAY TIMES - Simon Jenkins

The book is a mine of information. - THE WEEK

Liza Picard was born in 1927. She worked for the Inland Revenue for many years and lived in London, before retiring to Oxford where she now lives.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780297847335
ISBN 10	0297847333
Title	Victorian London
Author	Liza Picard
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Orion Publishing Co
Year published	2005-08-04
Number of pages	400
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.