Comments on: Henry Mayhew’s Street Traders

By: Julio

Julio — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 11:00:37 +0000

Pretty! This was a really wonderful article. Many thanks for providing this info.

By: JJ Waller

JJ Waller — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 07:22:07 +0000

A real influence on my life probably why so much of my work is street orientated. Mayhew is there in my DNA. An extraordinary man. http://www.jjwaller.com

By: liz

liz — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:42:23 +0000

This post has really made my day – I have been intrigued about learning more about Mayhew’s work, and so this has given me a good taste. I like learning about social history of Victorian times, and recently read The Ghost Map about the 1834 (?) cholera epidemic in London. (That’s where I heard about Mayhew.) It’s so nice when you read something, get curious about it, and then a few days later, end up being gifted with knowledge from an unexpected source.

Thanks a lot.
liz in texas

By: Chris F

Chris F — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 19:01:59 +0000

If you ever get the opportunity of seeing the actor ‘Simon Callow’ playing the part of Charles Dickens ‘Doctor Marigold’, take it. It is one of Dickens lesser known pieces but it ranks as one of my favourites.

By: CornishCockney

CornishCockney — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 00:06:41 +0000

Absolutely fascinating. I love these glimpses into a bygone age.

By: jeannette

jeannette — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:49:55 +0000

p.s. ackroyd claims sam weller was the first cockney/working class protagonist, which in part account for the amazing popular success of dickens’ first novel, the Pickwick Papers:

But perhaps the most important evidence for the success of Dickens’ work is to be found in the report of one of his first biographers who, at the time of the novel’s appearance, had visited a locksmith in Liverpool: “I found him reading Pickwick…to an audience of twenty persons, literally, men, women and children.” It [the serialized periodical instalments of PP] was hired by them all for twopence a day from the circulating library, because they could not afford a shilling for the monthly number, and the observer never forgot how these humble people, who themselves could not read, laughed with Sam Weller and cried with “ready tears” at the death of the poor debtor in Fleet prison. This was the audience Charles Dickens had found — not only the judges and the doctors, but the labouring poor.
ackroyd, p 197

By: Cherub

Cherub — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:45:58 +0000

Such moving tales of the things people had to do to keep the wolf from the door, especially the blind and disabled. About 25 years ago I read Charles Booth’s London and it made me very grateful that we have a welfare state. The people he spoke of lived in such grinding poverty that it made me shiver to read about them. The same with Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier.

By: jeannette

jeannette — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:36:14 +0000

ackroyd, in his amazing bio of dickens, has a couple of short chapters in which he writes of encountering dickens’ ghost on the streets. highly recommended.

i think mayhew — along with dickens, who was similarly employed — is one of the top 100 revolutionaries in the history of mankind.

By: John B

John B — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:21:44 +0000

I agree, such a shame the photos were lost. These pen portraits are vivid, and the sketches do them justice, but it would have been such a treat to see the true visages of the speakers. I don’t recall yet seeing any of these ‘interview with the poor’ type books with actual photographs?

By: Undine

Undine — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 23:50:34 +0000

It sounds like a remarkable book, indeed. I do wish the original photographs had survived, though.