by Donald Thomas (Author)
Here, through the eyes of its inhabitants, Donald Thomas portrays the nineteenth-century underworld - one of 'night houses' and cigar divans, of street people and entertainers. The underworld was sheltered by an underclass, united with it in a hatred of the police. In its rookeries and padding-kens, gin shops and taverns, hard by the fashionable West End, thrived thieves and beggars, cheats, forgers and pickpockets, preying on rich and poor alike. Thackery wrote that the wonders of the Victorian underworld 'have been lying by your door and mine ever since we had a door of our own. We had but to go a hundred yards off and see it for ourselves, but we never did.' Her Donald Thomas pushes open that door to reveal a world at once both strange and strangely familiar.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 352
Edition: 2
Publisher: John Murray
Published: 04 Sep 2003
ISBN 10: 0719563429
ISBN 13: 9780719563423
Book Overview: Donald Thomas won the Gregory Award for his poems Point of Contact .