Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840--1870 [Hardcover]

Liza Picard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 7, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0312325673 | ISBN-13: 978-0312325671 | Edition: 1st

To Londoners, the years 1840 to 1870 were years of dramatic change and achievement. As suburbs expanded and roads multiplied, London was ripped apart to build railway lines and stations and life-saving sewers. The Thames was contained by embankments, and traffic congestion was eased by the first underground railway in the world. A start was made on providing housing for the "deserving poor." There were significant advances in medicine, and the Ragged Schools are perhaps the least known of Victorian achievements, in those last decades before universal state education. In 1851 the Great Exhibition managed to astonish almost everyone, attracting exhibitors and visitors from all over the world. But there was also appalling poverty and exploitation, exposed by Henry Mayhew and others. For the laboring classes, pay was pitifully low, the hours long, and job security nonexistent.

 

Liza Picard shows us the physical reality of daily life. She takes us into schools and prisons, churches and cemeteries. Many practical innovations of the time--flushing lavatories, underground railways, umbrellas, letter boxes, driving on the left--point the way forward. But this was also, at least until the 1850s, a city of cholera outbreaks, transportation to Australia, public executions, and the workhouse, where children could be sold by their parents for as little as £12 and streetpeddlers sold sparrows for a penny, tied by the leg for children to play with. Cruelty and hypocrisy flourished alongside invention, industry, and philanthropy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Picard (Elizabeth's London) opens this entertaining study of London's modern transformation with the exemplary tale of engineering genius Joseph Bazalgette's new sewer complex, which relieved the city's stink from overflowing cesspits. She goes on to show how the rise of railways transformed Victorian urban planning, spurring the growth of commuter suburbs. Touching on philanthropic initiatives in public housing, Picard also describes the architectural quirks of the typical Victorian middle-class terraced house and the everyday workings of the city's police, fire, water, gas and refuse services. Picard uses the material details of working, middle and upper classes to tell the story of Victorian class difference, dwelling on the hardships of the domestic servant and the intricacies of some of London's more successful trades, from tanning to piano manufacture to sugar refining. She also provides a fascinating history of London hospitals and medical schools. Although Picard depends heavily on the writings of Jane Carlyle (wife of Thomas Carlyle) and the chronicler of Victorian poverty Thomas Mayhew, Picard's use of servant diaries, the journals of visiting French tourists and contemporary advice manuals is effective and often humorous. Arch and conversational in tone, Picard's history is an informative treat. 32 pages of color photos. (Apr. 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The author freezes a three-decade time frame to capture the essence--literally, the sights, sounds, and odors--of the British capital at the height of the Victorian era. Picard's systematic examination offers both detail and insight into conditions of life, from all walks of life, as she presents an account at once greatly factual and highly atmospheric. The format is logical and the material easy to follow, with chapters ranging in topic from "Smells" (to really appreciate London back then, the author instructs the reader to "think of the worst smell you have ever met"), "The Streets," "Destitution and Poverty," "Upper Classes and Royalty," "Health," "Education," and "Religion." Not for casual browsers but for serious and well-versed readers seeking to stoke their interest in learning more about the city that, at the time, was the world's capital. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (March 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312325673
• ISBN-13: 978-0312325671
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,230,610 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Queen Victoria's Legacy, September 6, 2006

By 

J. Chippindale (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840--1870 (Hardcover)

I stumbled on Liza Picard's books quite by chance. After looking at the publishing date in some of the books it is apparent some of them have been around for several years. I am now recommending them to anyone and everyone and I am so glad I stumbled across the first one I read on a rainy afternoon, lonely and far away from home. I have now read them all.

As soon as you start to read the book it becomes apparent that the author is passionate about her subject and wants the reader to enjoy the reading experience as much as she has in the writing of it. Liza Picard presents an enthralling picture of how life in London in the Victorian era was really lived. The Victorian era covers a large span in years and was a time when the world was changing more quickly than at any period in its history. A magical, mystical period in the history of a great City.

Liza Picard was born in 1927. She read law and qualified as a barrister but did not practice. Quite where she gleaned all this information from I am not sure. That it was a labour of love is obvious to anyone who reads her books and I for one am grateful.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars in depth look at how London became a modern city, March 8, 2006

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840--1870 (Hardcover)

This is an in depth look at how London became a modern city through the early Victorian transition. The insight starts with the key to any city the revision of the sewage system to eliminate the health problems and the odor that permeated much of the city from cesspits. As fascinating is the role of women, which differs depending on social class; unlike romance novels, the author furbishes a powerful look at the growing factory and municipal working class, those below the poverty line, and the servant class too. In these cases diaries and the writings of chroniclers like Jane Carlyle and Thomas Mayhew provide insight. This is a terrific look at three decades of transformation of one of the world's greatest cities. Readers who enjoyed the recently issued LONDON'S THAMES: THE RIVER THAT SHAPED A CITY AND ITS HISTORY as well as the author's previous captivating London historicals (see ELIZABETH'S LONDON and RESTORATION LONDON) will appreciate this deep look at the historical era of transformation of an urban center that never slept in the middle of the nineteenth century and still does not.

Harriet Klausner

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Smells, sounds, society and daily life of Victorian London explained in readable prose, July 15, 2006

By 

C. M Mills "Michael Mills" (Knoxville Tennessee) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840--1870 (Hardcover)

Liza Pickard is a barrister with a mighty pen. She has authored several books about London. These Include: Life in
Elizabethan London: Restoration London; Dr. Johnson's London
and now this fourth book in the series.
Picard has done her homework: her reading of first person diaries and sources; periodical articles from the age. She includes
excellent secondary sources giving the reader an accurate view of
life when Victoria reigned the British Empire. The little Queen
ruled for 64 years from 1837 to her death in 1901.
Picard's chapters deal with such topics as:
daily life for the poor, middle class and wealthy;
the smells and the sights of London;
male and female fashions;
church life and the judicial system of Victorian England;
Amusements from opera strolling in the park to riding a horse
on Rotten Row.
Household appliances and the chores of childrearing;
Disease and Death traditions. Medicine made progress.
the growth of the railroads and road construction;
the Great Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851;
Education expanding its opportunities through Ragged Schools
and church schools.
There are many other topics but you get the idea. The book is
not thrilling but it is essential to a student of English history or literature who wants to sample life for the average
Londoner living from 1840-1870.