The Metropolitan Poor

This is a major collection of primary materials on the metropolitan poor, covering the period from the emergence of London as the world centre of trade and commerce, to the beginning of the First World War. The metropolitan poor has attracted much academic interest in recent years as a consequence of which we now have a sophisticated understanding of poverty and its distribution. Contemporary representations of the poor, however, have all too often been neglected. For the most part, historians have tended to focus on the familiar surveys of Mayhew and Booth, failing to recognize the enormous diversity and volume of other materials produced, in particularly by urban travellers and evangelicals. This edition includes the writings of urban travellers and the more widely known social reformers. The collection begins with writings from the final years of the 18th century, that is, from the time when the poor were first discovered as endemic to the nation, before reproducing extracts from Mayhew's influential survey and the journalism it inspired. The period from the emergence of the stridently sensational writings of James Greenwood to the distinctly modern perspectives of Jack London and Charles Masterman is charted as well as the contribution of prominent evangelicals. "The Metropolitan Poor of the Nineteenth Century" should find a ready interest in all academic communities where the study of Victorian society thrives and should be of particular value to those engaged in historical and literary studies.