Dickens and the Workhouse: Oliver Twist And The London Poor
Author(s): Ruth Richardson (Author)
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Usa
Publication Date: 7 Jan. 2014
Edition: Illustrated
Language: English
Print length: 390 pages
ISBN-10: 0199681287
ISBN-13: 9780199681280
Book Description
The recent discovery that, as a young man, Charles Dickens lived only a few doors from a major London workhouse made headlines worldwide. This book, by the historian who did the sleuthing behind this exciting discovery, presents the story for the first time, and shows that the two periods during which Dickens lived in that part of London were profoundly important to his subsequent writing career.
Editorial Reviews
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Review
[Richardson] conjures up vivid images of poverty-stricken Victorian London and deepens our understanding of the sense of outrage that compelled Dickens to bring the predicament of the poor to wider attention. ― Glasgow Herald
It is a lively, compassionate, and revealing account of the man and his times. ―
Lesley McDowell , Independent on Sunday
Intriguing volume ―
Daily Mail
Richardson’s enthusiasm for her subject shines throughout this hugely engaging and informative book ―
BBC History Magazine
The important discoveries in this surprising book come from an intimate knowledge of Dickens and London, coupled with a historian’s passion. We’re seized by the hand of a detective and walked into Dickens’s world. Unputdownable. ―
Miriam Margolyes
The book offers a detailed study of the Dickens’s family home and its surrounding neighbourhood, as well as an evocative and damning portrait of Britain’s de-facto ‘prison system to punish poverty’. ―
New Yorker
Gives an intimately evoked view of Dickens’s childhood and the New Poor Law of 1834 by which workhouses became ‘a sort of prison system to punish [the poor]. ―
New York Review of Books
Pulls off that rare combination of a perfectly and thoroughly executed piece of academic research whilst remaining not only immensely readable but positively compelling … this book is wonderful. ―
London Historians
About the Author
Ruth Richardson is a historian and the author of a number of books. The Wall Street Journal described her last book, The Making of Mr. Gray’s Anatomy (Oxford University Press) as ‘one of those rarities, history that reads like a novel’. That book won the 2009 Medical Journalists’ Open Book Award.
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