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.
Industry Reviews
"This is a tightly argued, meticulously researched history of sanitation that reads like a novel."-Paula Byrne, The Times
"Lee Jackson stops to have a good poke around - and consider in fascinating, sometimes gruesome detail, the filth and nuisances of the time . . . Utterly engrossing."-Jo Baker, The New York Times Book Review
"Mr Jackson has written a book that is neat and sparkling, unlike his subject matter."-Emily Cockayne, Wall Street Journal Europe
"Impressive . . . [Lee] Jackson has written a book that is neat and sparkling, unlike his subject matter."-Emily Cockayne, The Wall Street Journal
"Rich in wonderful contemporary details gleaned from newspapers and archives, Jackson's study is a vivid account of the enormous challenges faced by a city expanding at an unprecedented rate."-P. D. Smith, The Guardian
"An atypical look at London's social history. Jackson manages to make a disgusting topic much funnier than one would expect."-Library Journal
"There is an extensive bibliography and index and this makes Dirty Old London a very welcome addition to the social history of the Victorian capital. It will be useful to scholars as well as being a very enjoyable popular history which deserves a wide readership."-Drew Gray, The London Journal
"From the dustmen who grew rich from recycling, to a history of the public lavatory, this fascinating book provides a (dare I say fresh?) insight into life in the Victorian capital."-Current Archaeology
"Where there's muck there's brass. Let's hope so for Lee Jackson, author of this volume on all things feculent, filthy and noisome in the Victorian city. It's a big topic that deserves a big audience."-Matt Brown, The Londonist
"The book is engagingly written, and based on a wide reading of source material and recent academic writing."-Peter Hounsell, Who Do You Think You Are Magazine
"Delve deep into Victorian London's dirty streets in this detailed, but enjoyably graphic, account of efforts to make life better for the British capital's growing population."-History Revealed
"This superb book places the humdrum business of keeping a city and its people clean in a detailed social and political context."-Jonathan Wright, The Tablet
"This interesting and informative book deserves to have a wide circulation."-John Beasley, The Methodist Recorder
"This is a fascinating work that will engage both those interested in Victorian in general and London in particular."-Stephen Halliday, BBC History Magazine
"I thought I knew nineteenth-century London-this book made me smell it . . . Mud: it's so often mentioned in Victorian literature, but I didn't know what it was until I read this admirable book."-Clive Aslet, Country Life
"Dirty Old London is a treat - truly Victorian, in that it is shocking, entertaining, educational and grisly by turns."-Catharine Arnold, author of Necropolis: London and its Dead
"I can't think of a better companion with whom to explore London's underbelly - expert, engaging and approachable."-Sarah Wise, author of The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum
"So much meticulous research packaged into such a vividly readable narrative. I loved it."-Liza Picard, author of Victorian London
"The squalor of Victorian London was proverbial. Lee Jackson's revelatory clean-up goes behind the headlines to allow us to see not just what, but why, London was so dirty."-Judith Flanders, author of The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London
