The Blackest Streets
Sarah Wise
'An excellent and intelligent investigation of the realities of urban living that respond to no design or directive... This is a book about the nature of London itself' Peter Ackroyd, The Times
A powerful exploration of the seedy side of Victorian London by one of our most promising young historians.
In 1887 government inspectors were sent to investigate the Old Nichol, a notorious slum on the boundary of Bethnal Green parish, where almost 6,000 inhabitants were crammed into thirty or so streets of rotting dwellings and where the mortality rate ran at nearly twice that of the rest of Bethnal Green. Among much else they discovered that the decaying 100-year-old houses were some of the most lucrative properties in the capital for their absent slumlords, who included peers of the realm, local politicians and churchmen.
The Blackest Streets is set in a turbulent period of London's history when revolution was in the air. Award-winning historian Sarah Wise skilfully evokes the texture of life at that time, not just for the tenants but for those campaigning for change and others seeking to protect their financial interests. She recovers Old Nichol from the ruins of history and lays bare the social and political conditions that created and sustained this black hole which lay at the very heart of the Empire.
A revelatory and prescient read about cities, class and inequality, the message at the heart of The Blackest Streets still resonates today.
Product Details
About Sarah Wise
Reviews for The Blackest Streets
Peter Ackroyd
The Times
A revelatory book...beaming the light of impartial historical research into the horrible dens and alleys. It avoids the voyeurism that such books often fall into: Wise describes the terrible conditions dispassionately, bringing out the resilience and self-respect of the slum-dwellers
John Carey
Sunday Times
Read it and be flabbergasted
New Statesman
She is a sure-footed guide. In each strand of enquiry she has something new and surprising to say
Jerry White
Times Literary Supplement
Sarah Wise has created an exceptional work, in that it is both scholarly and page turning - a genuine treat
Gilda O'Neill Sarah Wise is too clever and considered a historian simply to give us a lurid, one-dimensional Victorian melodrama. Through painstaking archival work and readable empathetic prose, she has instead sought to evoke the texture of life here
Daily Telegraph
The account is both moving and engrossing, and its tendency in places to become a litany of misery and despair is redeemed by Sarah Wise's light and occasionally humorous touch
Literary Review
As with her previous book The Italian Boy, Sarah Wise is superb on statistical detail... In every respect this is a note-perfect work of social history, thoroughly researched, charitable in its sympathies, and sadly still embodying lessons for today
Independent
Carefully researched... a wide-ranging study
Sunday Telegraph
Her achievement is remarkable... This engrossing work shines a light not only on a turbulent period in London's history, but on humanity itself. Only the best histories can claim as much
Guardian