London Labour and the London Poor cover art

London Labour and the London Poor

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

London Labour and the London Poor

By: Henry Mayhew
Narrated by: David Timson
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £30.99

Buy Now for £30.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

London Labour and the London Poor is a rare and fascinating insight into the lives and struggles of the 19th-century poor. Written by journalist and reformer Henry Mayhew, a founder and editor of the satirical magazine Punch, it collects hundreds of testimonials from the lower strata of Victorian society. We encounter street entertainers, 'pure finders', cabinetmakers, gingerbread sellers, 'screeve-fakers', swindlers, and burglars. We hear accounts from toshers finding items in sewers, people attempting to train pigs to dance, and witness the sale of everything from gilt watches and chickweed to needles, dog collars, and eel soup. It is a remarkable work, said to have inspired the socially conscious fiction of Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray, who described it as 'a picture of human life so wonderful, so awful, so piteous and pathetic, so exciting and terrible, that readers of romances own they never read anything like to it'.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Public Domain (P)2018 Naxos Audiobooks
19th Century Classics Great Britain Poverty & Homelessness World England Fiction Witty
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Walden cover art
Thoreau: Walden / Civil Disobedience (Unabridged) cover art
Victorian London cover art
Between the Acts cover art
The Good Soldier cover art
London in the Nineteenth Century cover art
London in the Eighteenth Century cover art
Journal of the Plague Year cover art
A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain cover art
Great and Horrible News cover art
The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England cover art
Dr. Johnson's London cover art
My Life and Times cover art
A Brief History of Life in the Middle Ages cover art
Angel Meadow cover art
The Diary of Samuel Pepys cover art

What listeners say about London Labour and the London Poor

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    31
  • 4 Stars
    8
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    30
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    27
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating work on social history brilliantly narrated

One of the best pieces of narration I have yet encountered on Audible. Timson brings to life a challenging piece of social history in a way that is east to digest.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Essential.

Superb. A must read for anyone interested in modern Britain. Also incredibly valuable contextual stuff for the amateur genealogists.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Travel through time to 1840's London.

I've always loved Mayhew - especially for faithfully recording, for the first time, the voices of the 'people of the abyss'.
The narration is excellent; David Timson's vocalisations of the downtrodden and weary has real variation and pathos.
My only (very slight) criticism is that this edition leaves out many of Mayhew's interviews. However it makes up for it by including much fascinating material, including some of his correspondence with readers.
If you've been hooked by Mayhew's ability to take you back in time and hear the voices of the day to day folk of early Victorian London, you won't be disappointed.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Essential reading

A fantastic edit of the original work. Essential reading for anyone interested in labour rights.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

1840s London brought to life

This is one of the most important social history books of the last 200 years. David Timson is a brilliant narrator. His characterisations of individual interviewees are engaging & altogether excellent. Highly recommended.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

This was the first time I approached this work, although I had seen and heard it mentioned many times on other media. An abridged version of Mayhew's mammoth social research effort, it really brings the subject matter to life, also thanks to the outstanding performance by Mr Timson. Thank you.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful