The Victorian City — Judith Flanders

Flanders reconstructs Victorian London through its material and social textures — the streets, the markets, the music halls, the fog, the poverty, and the extraordinary density of human activity in what was then the largest city in the world. The book is organised around aspects of urban life rather than a chronological narrative, drawing on contemporary accounts, journalism, and literature to give a sense of what it was actually like to inhabit the Victorian city.