Customer Reviews

Victorian Babylon: People, Streets and Images in Nineteenth-Century London

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Second Empire Paris proclaimed itself Europe's first modern city, extensively rebuilt by the autocratic remodeling of Napoleon III. Londoners, however, had to achieve the monumental changes of the middle of the nineteenth century in bits and pieces by cooperation with various authorities rather than an imposition by a dictator. Certainly, the modernization of London in the mid-nineteenth century produced a city that was greatly different form Paris, according to _Victorian Babylon: People, Streets, and Images in 19th Century London_ (Yale University Press) by Lynda Nead. Nead is a professor of art history, and her well-illustrated book explains the changes in the city and the society from around 1850 to 1880. "London's municipal government emerged out of a fog of local hostility and resistance," Nead writes.

Nead details the changes that came to the city because of its huge sewer system, or the installation of gas lighting. For instance, gas made night shopping and strolling possible, and enabled men and women to dance, drink, and generally be naughty at the Cremorne Pleasure Gardens. The moralists of the time fought against Cremorne's various licenses, and eventually it went under, but not before inspiring Whistler's famous _Nocturne in Black and Gold_ which led to his lawsuit against Ruskin. The moralists were in further quandary over Holywell Street, the history of which is the most engaging part of the book. It was the home of pornographers who put their wares in the windows, hazarding youth and especially (according to the view of the time) women, who loved bright colors. Holywell was especially cited in debate over the Obscene Publications Act of 1857, and police closed down some of the businesses and seized some of their goods, but it seems that such efforts are never very effective. The street soldiered on in its popular and sinful way until the very end of Victoria's reign, when it was finally done in by razing to make way for the new Kingsway thoroughfare. Parliament never did solve the problem of defining what is obscene; those who want to censor the Internet have the same problem today.

Nead has written a book about how people affect the city environment and vice versa. It is extremely well illustrated, with quality reproductions of engravings, oils, and sheet music covers, producing a good-looking book whose illustrations and text reinforce each other with style.

This is a truly one-of-a-kind writing on the subject of Victorian culture. Many of my other sources are exceedingly boring to read or seem stuck on the ethereal "you had to be there" sort of atmosphere of the time. I can really connect with Nead and her use of art and architecture.

I am a devoted Victorianist and found the info in this book to be a useful study of certain aspects of London. However it suffers a little from too much effort to be "academic" so that the writing style gets stiff and wordy at times. Nevertheless, the discussion of the pleasure gardens of early Victorian London and for me the discussion how how women looked at public versus private identities were very good. Worth a read if you want some more depth in your studies of London or Victorian perspectives.