The Victorian Underworld by Donald Thomas
Feb. 19th, 2006 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
There is no descriptive Blurb on the Back, instead we get the following quotes:
Donald Thomas introduces us to the slums and fetid courtyards of nineteenth-century London and in doing so provides a sweeping portrait of the vast world that did not accept "Victorian Values". The villainy is astounding. It is also entertaining. The author has a practised eye for the best anecdotes and presents amazing characters, some of whom come equipped with names that sound positively Dickensian ... a wonderful profile of Victorian London.
The Spectator
Thomas writes with a historian's ironically neutral eye about brothels, pornography, forgery and serial killers, and includes a gripping account of the London-to_Paris mail train robbery, in which a gang got away with a quarter of a ton of gold bullion.
Guardian
To be honest, I can't do more justice to this book than what has already been said by both the Guardian and The Spectator's reviewers. This is a thoroughly absorbing look at the criminal underbelly of Victorian England - too entertaining to be dismissed as an academic work of social history. Donald Thomas conveys a real sense of the time and the attitudes of the people living within it and he introduces people who are interested in the subject matter to writers of the time - notably Mayhew, providing more material for those who wish to take it further.
If I had to quibble, I would say that I was less interested in the last couple of chapters looking at corruption in Scotland Yard and the reform of the police service, if only because as a subject matter I thought that it was narrowly focused (looking at the main example of police corruption at the time) and would have benefitted from a variety of smaller examples. I also thought that the chapter on miscarriages of justice would perhaps have worked better as a book in its own right given that it is a fascinating subject. In particular, given the current fashion for looking at the intervention by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in two miscarriages of justice (made popular by Julian Barnes' novel Arthur and George), it's interesting to read Thomas's account of these events (which he wrote back in 1998), but because of current media overkill, you don't really learn anything new (and I would stress that this is only because of the current media climate and not due to a lack of research or any lack in writing capability on Thomas's part).
There are some incredibly heart-breaking accounts within this text and you learn an awful lot about what people really thought 150 years ago. Thomas never fails to provide a human voice and there's a wry ironic voice in some of the stories that will make you laugh out loud.
The Verdict:
Thoroughly entertaining and definitely worth a perusal by anyone who enjoys discovering how people used to live.
There is no descriptive Blurb on the Back, instead we get the following quotes:
Donald Thomas introduces us to the slums and fetid courtyards of nineteenth-century London and in doing so provides a sweeping portrait of the vast world that did not accept "Victorian Values". The villainy is astounding. It is also entertaining. The author has a practised eye for the best anecdotes and presents amazing characters, some of whom come equipped with names that sound positively Dickensian ... a wonderful profile of Victorian London.
Thomas writes with a historian's ironically neutral eye about brothels, pornography, forgery and serial killers, and includes a gripping account of the London-to_Paris mail train robbery, in which a gang got away with a quarter of a ton of gold bullion.
To be honest, I can't do more justice to this book than what has already been said by both the Guardian and The Spectator's reviewers. This is a thoroughly absorbing look at the criminal underbelly of Victorian England - too entertaining to be dismissed as an academic work of social history. Donald Thomas conveys a real sense of the time and the attitudes of the people living within it and he introduces people who are interested in the subject matter to writers of the time - notably Mayhew, providing more material for those who wish to take it further.
If I had to quibble, I would say that I was less interested in the last couple of chapters looking at corruption in Scotland Yard and the reform of the police service, if only because as a subject matter I thought that it was narrowly focused (looking at the main example of police corruption at the time) and would have benefitted from a variety of smaller examples. I also thought that the chapter on miscarriages of justice would perhaps have worked better as a book in its own right given that it is a fascinating subject. In particular, given the current fashion for looking at the intervention by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in two miscarriages of justice (made popular by Julian Barnes' novel Arthur and George), it's interesting to read Thomas's account of these events (which he wrote back in 1998), but because of current media overkill, you don't really learn anything new (and I would stress that this is only because of the current media climate and not due to a lack of research or any lack in writing capability on Thomas's part).
There are some incredibly heart-breaking accounts within this text and you learn an awful lot about what people really thought 150 years ago. Thomas never fails to provide a human voice and there's a wry ironic voice in some of the stories that will make you laugh out loud.
The Verdict:
Thoroughly entertaining and definitely worth a perusal by anyone who enjoys discovering how people used to live.
