Judith Flanders's erudite and vivid look at 19th-century London is a reminder that what Charles Dickens -an unflinching observer of urban wretchedness, whom Ms. Flanders rightly hails as 'the greatest recorder the London streets has ever known'-chronicled in his novels and journalism was merely life as most people then lived it...Ms. Flanders is a beguiling guide, drawing on Dickens's writings to create an irresistible portrait of the English capital at a time of unprecedented expansion... The Victorian City is the perfect companion to Dickens's work.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Flanders uses secondary historical sources alongside Dickens's own impressions of the city to take us on a dazzling journey through an imperial city plagued by poverty and deeply divided by class... Flanders must be given credit for doing an astounding job of recreating every nook and cranny of London in this richly detailed compendium. Shying away from academic pretension, Flanders tells the epic story of this biggest and boldest Victorian city in all its complexity, with verve, color and a straightforward approach to language that still manages to give a voice to ordinary Londoners - something Dickens would no doubt approve of.” —NPR.org
“Flanders... is giving famed English novelist and historian Peter Ackroyd a run for his money in their joint delight over all things London. In this new work, Victorian expert Flanders fields just about every question the intelligent reader might have about Dickensian London.” —Buffalo News, 4 stars
“Weaving a tapestry as colorful as a market flower display, Flanders not only describes such things as changes in transportation but takes us right into the streets, to battle the mud and to be smothered in dust. The Victorian City is social history at its finest, a must-read for Dickens fans or anyone who loves London. It reminds us why this time period is endlessly fascinating to read about, but probably not a place we'd really want to live.” —BookPage
“[Flanders'] imagery is often intense and striking… The streets of London were a constant assault on the senses with their noise and smell. This is a superb portrait of an exciting, thriving, and dangerous city.” —Booklist, starred review
“A well-stuffed compendium on the transformational era in the history of London that fed both Charles Dickens' imagination and his well of outrage…. Flanders writes with bubbling enthusiasm about the old markets, Covent Garden and Smithfield, with their accompanying din and smells, and the plethora of life we only know through Dickens' eyes: the street vendors and artists, matchstick sellers, slum dwellers, prostitutes, habitués of gin palaces and prisoners. A terrific companion while reading Boz himself.” —Kirkus
“Flanders (The Invention of Murder) successfully recreates the feel of London at Dickens's peak as she delves deep into the rhythms and architecture of particular neighborhoods…. Flanders's expertise shines when exposing Dickens's embellishments, particularly when his character Fagin faces execution rather than the less powerful but more realistic punishment of deportment. This well-researched sociological overview provides highly detailed context for cultural touchstones, while shattering the popular yet inauthentic image of a pristine Victorian age that never existed.” —Publishers Weekly
“Outstanding.” —Sunday Times (London)
“The teeming, bustling, hand-to-mouth and often smelly facts of mid-19th century urban life have seldom been more vividly presented than in this book.” —Literary Review
“With infectious enthusiasm Judith Flanders dives into the sights, smells, sounds and grit of what was then the largest city the world had ever known: London.” —Sunday Telegraph (London)
“Full of detail and colour about everyday life in Dickens's London, and leaves you with a sense not only of how hard life was then, but how strange. Even if you've read Dickens and the contemporary historians of the poor, there is still more to marvel at here.” —Sebastian Faulks, Mail on Sunday Books of the Year (London)
“A quite extraordinary book, which I read with much enjoyment: an intoxicating blend of London, life and literature... I think it's Judith Flanders' best book yet, which is saying something.” —Andrew Taylor
“Meticulous and gripping... Flanders says that Dickens appealed to contemporaries because he gave them a voyage into the unknown: into parts of London they did not know and where they would not venture. She does something similar for us. The strangeness remains, but the voyage is unforgettable.” —Independent (UK)
“Flanders captures the variety and colour of 19th-century London, stirring admiration and indignation by turns. To lead us through the Victorian capital, through its hustle and sprawl, its dangers and entertainments, you couldn't hope for a better guide.” —New Statesman (UK)
“Recreates the textures of everyday life with an anthropologist's understanding of human behaviour alongside a storyteller's eye for character.” —Daily Telegraph (UK)
05/12/2014
harles Dickens grimly portrayed Londoners as people resigned to hardscrabble living, ubiquitous filth, and prevalent violence, and Flanders (The Invention of Murder) successfully recreates the feel of London at Dickens’s peak as she delves deep into the rhythms and architecture of particular neighborhoods. This information-packed profile of Victorian London offers renewed insight into Dickens’s youth as an imprisoned debtor’s working child; his love of walking the city’s winding streets; and finally, the reality behind the traumatic adventures of such well-known characters as Oliver Twist. The book is divided into four comprehensive sections, covering topics like urban water and road transportation systems, affordable entertainment, and the wide range of linguistic dialects. Only the somewhat abrupt ending, after a segment on suicides, feels incomplete. While Dickens typically hewed close to reality in his work, Flanders’s expertise shines when exposing Dickens’s embellishments, particularly when his character Fagin faces execution rather than the less powerful but more realistic punishment of deportment. This well-researched sociological overview provides highly detailed context for cultural touchstones, while shattering the popular yet inauthentic image of a pristine Victorian age that never existed. (July)
2014-05-17
A well-stuffed compendium on the transformational era in the history of London that fed both Charles Dickens' imagination and his well of outrage.From his first published work, Sketches by Boz (1836), set in pre-Victorian London, until his last, unfinished novel, Edwin Drood (1870), Dickens drew on the life and characters of his beloved city. In her prodigiously detailed work, British journalist Flanders (The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Reveled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime, 2013, etc.) reminds readers that "Dickensian" changed in meaning from the early part of the author's career—when it meant "comic"—to a posthumous sense of "grim" and "dark." Indeed, Dickens, the tireless walker of the London streets, author of nimble imagination who composed several works at once, covered all of the city as the early Victorian era of "earnestness and endeavor" gave way to the "moving age" involving increased population, paralyzing traffic, industry, building and slums. Where to begin in such a work? On the street, of course, from just getting around, as most people did by foot, arriving for 12-hour-plus working shifts in a dusty mess and assaulted by a roar of noise; to taking horse-drawn omnibuses, hackney coaches, mail coaches, cabs and so on, all susceptible to natural hazards like fog. The greatest change to London was the arrival of the railroad in 1836, which sliced through old neighborhoods Dickens knew keenly, Moreover, the railways became for him "symbols of a time that was passing, or past." Flanders writes with bubbling enthusiasm about the old markets, Covent Garden and Smithfield, with their accompanying din and smells, and the plethora of life we only know through Dickens' eyes: the street vendors and artists, matchstick sellers, slum dwellers, prostitutes, habitués of gin palaces and prisoners.A terrific companion while reading Boz himself.