这一典藏为读者带来了19世纪维多利亚女士时代伦敦多样的城市街景，如豪华酒店、妓院和伦敦东区贫民窟等，并收录了各类传单、海报、指南，儿童畅销故事书，俗话字典与民谣，许多彩色地图、动画片，以及一套完整的伦敦部分街道视图。 其中的话题包括：底层大众、流行音乐、街道文学、工人阶层文化、警察与罪行、社会改革、节制运动等等。
An extraordinary digital collection bringing to life the teeming streets of Victorian London, and inviting students and scholars to explore the gin palaces, brothels and East End slums of the nineteenth century’s greatest city.
From salacious ‘swell’s guides’ to scandalous broadsides and subversive posters, the material sold and exchanged on London’s bustling thoroughfares offers an unparalleled insight into the dark underworld of the city. Children’s chapbooks, street cries, slang dictionaries and ballads were all part of a vibrant culture of street literature.
London Low Life is also an incredible visual resource for students and scholars of London, with many full colour maps, cartoons, sketches and a full set of the essential Tallis’ Street Views of London – a unique resource for the study of London architecture and commerce. We also include George Gissing's famous London scrapbooks from the Pforzheimer Collection, containing his research for London novels such as New Grub Street and The Netherworld.
This collection, drawn from the holdings of the Lilly Library, will be of interest to 19th century scholars researching: working-class culture, street literature, popular music, urban topography, ‘slumming’, prostitution, the Contagious Diseases Act, the Temperance Movement, social reform, Toynbee Hall, police and criminality.
Period Covered
- 19th Century
Highlights
Using the intuitive interactive map, users can:
- Overlay Victorian cartography over a modern, searchable base map, allowing comparison of the Victorian city with present-day London
- Visualise core data about Victorian London, including the boundaries of local government; population size, density and growth; and crime and poverty data
- Locate and read about key institutions relating to the social history of Victorian London: Workhouses, orphanages, asylums, prisons, university settlements, women’s refuges and religious missions
- See images of Victorian additions to the city including engineering feats such as the Thames Embankment and the London Underground, and tourist attractions including the Crystal Palace and the South Kensington Museum
- ‘Walk’ through London’s main streets, using our 3D versions of the remarkable Tallis Street Views
Source Archive
- Lilly Library, Indiana University
Material Types
- Fast literature
- Street ephemera – posters, advertising, playbills, ballads and broadsides
- Penny fiction
- Cartoons
- A complete collection of Tallis’ Street Views
- Chapbooks
- Street Cries
- Swell’s guides to London prostitution, gambling and drinking dens
- Tourist guides and topography
- Manuscripts of George Gissing
Subjects
- Crime and Justice
- Disreputable London
- Geography and the Built Environment
- Leisure and Entertainment
- Politics, Scandal and the News
- Religion, Charity and Social Reform
- Sex, Prostitution and Obscenity
- Street Literature and Popular Print
- Tourism
- Women and Gender
- Work, Industry and Commerce