Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29560 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

EXPRESS (7/7/06)
'A highly readable account of nineteenth-century London... Picard's book is a mine of information told with great enthusiasm and passion.'

Review
'A highly readable account of nineteenth-century London... Picard's book is a mine of information told with great enthusiasm and passion.' (EXPRESS (7/7/06) )

'This is a comprehensive history by anecdote, so the enlightening facts come thick and fast... Picard enforces the idea that history really is all around us.' (TELEGRAPH (8/7/06) )

'Her survey of Victorian London is as enjoyably wide-ranging as her previous volumes, and her curiosity about apparent trivia resurrects the realities of the past more successfully than many more solemn works of social and political analysis do.' (SUNDAY TIMES (30/7/06) )

Tristrum Hunt, NEW STATESMAN
'Picard enjoys recounting the gruesome daily mechanics of living in what Cobbett described as 'the great wen''

Customer Reviews

An entertaining read
Liza Picard's latest book is an entertaining, pleasingly diverting history of the period, written with her usual wit and fondess for the minutiae of daily life of times past. It's full of enthusiasm for the subject, hugely readable and a mine of information about a fascinating period.

I'm somewhat taken aback by the scathing review from A Reader From Edinburgh. While I don't claim it is the greatest history book of all time, it's significantly better than the review below would lead you to believe.

An entertaining read
I found Victorian London to be entertaining, full of enthusiasm for the subject full of enjoyable facts, large and small. All in all, highly enjoyable. A bit lightweight in places, but nothing wrong in that.

Yet it is exactly the same book as the reviewer from Edinburgh loathed with a passion bordering on hate. Yes, there are more serious history books available and yes, if you are fortunate, you could go visit your local folk museum. None of which seems to warrant one of the most damning reviews I have read on Amazon.

I urge you to read the book yourself. It will tell you more about London than you could possibly imagine.

Fascinating read
I too came across this book by chance - and found I couldn't put it down once I started reading. Unlike some other reviewers, I liked the fact that it wasn't a 'heavy' history book (not to say it doesn't provide a mine of information, however). Rather than dry analysis of the political/industrial/scientific developments of the period, everything was referred back to the impact on the people, their responses, their thoughts. It paints a rich picture of what Victorian life was like for people of all classes - which was what I was looking for.

The chapters are divided by subject area (railways, health, women, class etc) - and don't necessarily need to be read chronologically. The reviewer who found the first couple of chapters boring might have found more interest going further into the book first - the chapter on health, for example was a real eye opener.

I really like Liza Picard's style of writing. She clearly picks some anecdotes for the amusement (and astonishment) of the reader, and dots the book with her own wry observations (many of which made me giggle). This makes what is potentially a hard-going subject very easy to read. Charming, in fact.

I am delighted to find she has written about other periods - and am off to purchase them!