"Unknown London" is an anthology of literature and graphic illustrations that effectively defined a formative moment in the history of the metropolis. Over a period from 1815 to 1845, a relatively small number of authors, playwrights and illustrators, working within a bohemian literary culture, attempted innovatively to grasp the complex totality of the metropolis. They drew contradictorily upon previous genres, but used radical new devices to define their object of inquiry, simultaneously laying the foundation for the writings of Charles Dickens, Henry Mayhew and their successors. This body of work has never been given due attention. In the recent resurgence of interest in the literary metropolis, attention has remained on figures such as Blake, De Quincey, Wordsworth and Dickens, as a result of which the historical significance of the literary milieu represented in this collection has not been recognized. Works by Pierce Egan, George Smeeton, James Grant and W.T. Moncrieff in particular paved the way for early literary modernism. They inhabited a literary world increasingly concerned with opening the eyes of a new reading public to all levels of metropolitan life.
Many of these authors experimented with the relationship between word and image, so establishing forms of pictorial realization that were such an important feature of Victorian publishing. These factors contributed to widening the social range of the novel, theatre and journalistic inquiry, and gave rise to the extraordinary output of "problem" novels in the 1840s, the ascent of Dickens and the tradition of urban travel inspired by Mayhew. This collection of rare texts, most of which have been unavailable for at least a century, should be of interest to academic communities exploring 19th-century British culture, particularly around the metropolis. It should appeal, therefore, to urban, cultural, art, theatre and literary historians, as well as students of Victorian studies and of Charles Dickens.
Industry Reviews
'these books exemplify the carefully honed editing skills and acumen of a team of scholars intent on increasing the availability of sundry out-of-print and hard-to-find books that chronicle differing approaches to metropolitan life in London...Art historians have as much reason to rejoice in this compilation as their literary counterparts do since the volumes contain much graphic art affirming the strong, complex interplay between texts and imagery in responses to life in London...There is, moreover, an excellent introduction by John Marriott concerning these reprinted texts, which constitute a cultural history of the metropolis. In his remarks, Marriott traces such subjects as the origins, readership, appeal, visual imagery, and literary subculture of the urban poor...Whatever one's realm of study, this set will prove an invaluable research tool for students and scholars alike in pursuit of some angle of the "hot" topic of the nineteenth-century metropolis.' - Susan P Casteras, Nineteenth Century Studies '...this is a rich and diverse collection that illustrates the complex ways in which London was imagined in a range of early nineteenth-century representations which sought to make its unknowability more familiar and less threatening. Scholars of Victorian culture can only be grateful to have these influential early modernist visions of the metropolis brought together and made more widely available in this handsome reprint.' - Catherine Waters, Australasian Victorian Studies Journal 'Marriott has chosen to let the texts speak for themselves. There is a wide-ranging introduction, a list of references, brief introductions to each item reprinted, and a cumulative index... by making this phase of urban literature more widely available, Unknown London puts in place a missing stepping stone on the path to understanding the modernist perspective. It deserves grateful notice.' - Louis James, The Times Literary Supplement '... while many of these books, plays and images will be familiar to professional historians of London, they have been less easily accessible to students and the broader public. By creating this monumental collection, Marriott has ensured that a new generation of students and historians will find readily to hand some of the most engaging and innovative texts of the period... both the editor and the publishers deserve the thanks and congratulations of the broader scholarly community. The writings and images reproduced here are distinct and reflect their epoch beautifully. They also stand as a set of related and different views of the capital, located at an important turning in the history of London, the history of class and the history of literature... It is simply to be wished that other periods in the history of London could be so well served as the early nineteenth century.' - Tim Hitchcock, The London Journal 'Unknown London, a facsimile collection of mostly unfamiliar writings and graphics (all complete) representing the city in Dickens's formative years and in the first decade of his literary career, is a welcome initiative. The fact that none of these works has previously been reprinted since the nineteenth century - not even the best known and most influential of them, Pierce Egan's Life in London (1821) - is sufficient justification in itself for this publication... Unknown London makes a valuable contribution to early-nineteenth-century cultural studies and to the contextualization of Dickens scholarship. Its greatest revelation for me, despite the microscopic size of the reprinted text, has been the drama of Moncrieff, though four plays represent only a tiny sample of his vast output. Here, undoubtedly, is an estimable contributor to the London culture of his time who deserves to be less unknown today.' - Rick Allen, Dickens Quarterly
