An episode from 8/23/25: Returning to the podcast after a long hiatus, I read from Henry Mayhew and John Binny’s London Labour and the London Poor, their exhaustive and essential description of life in London for the working poor in the mid-nineteenth century. Far from being a dry and distant document, it is a work of literature in itself, as this description of the London docks—and those hoping for a day of paid work there—shows. The text can be found here.

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