London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) Read Online Free Page B

Country
(University of Georgia Press, 1977; Caliban Books, 1980). It contains a very full bibliography of books and articles by and about Mayhew.
    For Mayhew’s connection with
Punch
see A. A. Adrian,
Mark Lemon, First Editor of ‘Punch
’ (OUP, 1966).
    Dickens and Mayhew
    The picture of Mayhew as an actor in one of Dickens’s amateur productions may suggest a closer relationship between the two men than has hitherto been suspected. Certainly Dickens was influenced by Mayhew’s work. See F. R. and Q. D. Leavis,
Dickens the Novelist
(Chatto & Windus, 1970; Penguin, 1977). See also H. S. Nelson, ‘Dickens’ “Our Mutual Friend” and Henry Mayhew’s “London Labour and the London Poor”’, in
Nineteenth-Century Fiction
, XX (1965), pp. 207–22.
    About Mayhew
    There is an admirable listing of articles in Anne Humpherys’s biography. One of them, however, seems indispensable, being the first, so far as I know, to submit Mayhew’s work to the scrutiny of a socio-economic historian: E. P. Thompson, ‘The Political Education of Henry Mayhew’,
Victorian Studies
, Vol. XI, no. 1 (1967), pp. 41–62.
    Working People: Their Life and Experience
    In the course of his work Mayhew reproduces the life stories of many of the people he met. They are prime examples of working-class autobiography, and since historians have only recently turned their attention to this theme, the following book may be useful in assessing the validity and value of such material:
    David Vincent,
Bread, Knowledge and Freedom: A Study of Nineteenth Century Working Class Autobiography
(Europa, 1981; Methuen, 1982).
    Two recent books emphasize the importance of Mayhew as a social investigator:
    James Bennett,
Oral History and Delinquency: The Rhetoric of Criminology
(Chicago University Press, 1981). Chapters 1 and 2 deal with Mayhew’s Investigations.
    Raymond A. Kent,
A History of British Empirical Sociology
(Gower Publishing Company, 1981).
    Mayhew’s London
    Three books are of especial value in tracing locations in Mayhew’s work:
    Anon.,
The Pictorial Handbook of London
(H. G. Bohn, 1858). Now somewhat scarce, but a definitive view, with a folding map of the London that Mayhew knew so well.
    Peter Cunningham,
Hand-Book of London Past and Present
, 2nd edn (1850; reprinted by EP Publishing, 1978).
    H. A. Harben,
A Dictionary of London
(Herbert Jenkins, 1918).
    ‘
Mayhewiana
’
    Two books are worth recording of Mayhew’s association with them.
    Anon.,
London Characters
(Chatto & Windus, 1870). In 1874 there appeared a second edition, whose title page announced: ‘By Henry Mayhew and Other Writers’. This edition was bigger than the first and contained new material by Mayhew. A third, identical edition appeared in 1881. Since Henry Mayhew was a well-known journalist, it seems unlikely that his name would have been omitted from the first edition if he had contributed to it. What probably happened was that the publishers used his name and incorporated material by him to promote sales of the book.
    Augustus Mayhew,
Paved with Gold, or The Romance and Reality of the London Streets
(Chapman & Hall, 1858; reprinted by Frank Cass, 1971). Henry Mayhew was involved in the writing of the first few chapters of this novel. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne (‘Phiz’), it is an interesting work, with some of its best episodes set in the kind of milieu that Mayhew described in
London Labour and the London Poor
. Parts of it convey a strong sense of the reality of street life, which perhaps demonstrates the closeness of collaboration and discussion between the brothers Mayhew.

MAYHEW’S COLLABORATORS
    Vol. IV of
London Labour and the London Poor
was partly written by Henry Mayhew. The following writers also had a share in this volume:
    THE REV. WILLIAM TUCKNISS, B.A. (1833–64): Graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford (B.A. 1858); Chaplain to the Society for the Rescue of Young Women and Children.
    BRACEBRIDGE HEMYNG (1841–1901): Barrister and author of