Reading London - in fact

A select list of books about 19th Century London available at Westminster libraries.

Please note: each link will open in a new window.

Non-Fiction [Go to Fiction list]

ACKROYD, Peter

London: The biography Lon 942.11(9)

Much of Peter Ackroyd's work has been concerned with the life and past of London but here, as a culmination, is his definitive account of the city.

Dickens Biog 823.8

Dickens was a landmark biography when first published in 1990. This specially edited shorter edition takes the reader into the life of one of the world's greatest writers.

HALLIDAY, Stephen

The great stink of London LON 942.11(96)

In the sweltering summer of 1858 the stink of sewage from the polluted river Thames was extremely offensive. Engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette was chosen to change the city's outdated sanitation system. This text examines his great achievement.

Making the Metropolis; creators of Victoria's London LON 942.11(96)

Stephen Halliday investigates the transformation of London into the world's first metropolis as illustrated through the lives of eight men who made their mark on the capital, including John Nash, Thomas Cubitt and Joseph Bazalgette.

HEMPEL, Sandra

The medical detective: John Snow, cholera, and the mystery of the Broad street pump LON 614.514

Drawing on 19th century medical, political & personal records, this book describes John Snow's discovery that cholera is spread through drinking water. It also includes diversions into aspects of medical & social history - from Snow's tending of Queen Victoria in childbirth, to Leeuwenhoek's deliberate breeding of lice in his socks.

JACKSON, Lee

Victorian London LON 942.11(96)

This is a guide to Victorian London and the evidence of it that remains in London's landscape and society today. Lee Jackson relates his detailed knowledge of many aspects of the social history of the period, from architecture to popular culture and from education to crime and punishment.

NEAD, Lynda

Victorian Babylon: people, streets and images in nineteenth-century London LON 942.1

Lynda read charts the relationship between London's formation into a modern organised city in the 1860s and the emergence of new types of production and consumption of visual culture.

OATES, Jonathan

Unsolved murders in Victorian and Edwardian London LON 364.1523

Jonathan Oates has selected over 20 varied and intriguing unsolved murder cases from the late 1830s to just before the Great War. Among them are the headless body found in a bag at Waterloo Bridge, the pregnant maid who was bludgeoned to death and the barmaid whose corpse rode the train from Hounslow to Waterloo.

PICARD, Liza

Victorian London: the life of a city, 1840-1870 LON 942.1081

Drawing on a huge wealth of primary source material, including unpublished journals and diaries, Liza Picard provides a vivid social history of London in one of its most dramatic and exciting periods.

Storey, Neil R.

East End murders : from Jack the Ripper to Ronnie Kray CRI 364.1523

Information gathered from witness statements, coroners' reports, and court records make up this insight into some of the East End's darkest monents.

WERNER, Alex (ed.). introduction by Peter Ackroyd

Jack the Ripper and the East End Lon 364.1523 (written in association with the exhibition at the Museum in Docklands)

What was the East End of London like in the time of Jack the Ripper? This book aims to uncover the reality of East End life, with sections on slum housing, immigration, attitudes to women, poverty, violence and crime. The book explores the murders and their investigation, and looks at their influence on our vision of London.

WISE, Sarah

The blackest streets: the life and death of a Victorian slum Lon 942.1081

In the Victorian era, the Old Nichol was a notorious 15-acre slum in London's East End. Its squalid living conditions became a public scandal. Here, Sarah Wise, author of the award-winning 'The Italian Boy', explores the real lives behind the public outrage, laying bare the social and political conditions of the Old Nichol.

The Italian boy: murder and grave-robbery in 1830s London Lon 942.1075

Legislation which marked the end of body-snatching in 1830s Britain was the result of investigations in 'The Italian Boy' case in which 'examples' for dissection were supplied to anatomy schools. This title examines this episode in history and the lives of lower-class Londoners of the period.

See also Victorian London: A website devoted to all things related to the Victorian era; produced by Lee Jackson