Dickens and the Workhouse

The recent discovery that as a young man Charles Dickens lived only a few doors from a major London workhouse made headlines worldwide, and the campaign to save the workhouse from demolition caught the public imagination. Internationally, the media immediately grasped the idea that Oliver Twist's workhouse had been found, and made public the news that both the workhouse and Dickens's old home were still standing, near London's Telecom Tower. This book, by the historian who did the sleuthing behind these exciting new findings, presents the story for the first time, and shows that the two periods Dickens lived in that part of London - before and after his father's imprisonment in a debtors' prison - were profoundly important to his subsequent writing career. [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 HistoriansIntroduction: Oliver Twist and the Workhouse ; 1. Discovery: Threat, Puzzle, Silences ; 2. Vicinity: Environs of Gentility, Environs of Poverty ; 3. Institutions: Hospital and Workhouse ; 4. Home: House, Landlord, Shop, Inside, Upstairs, Downstairs ; 5. Street: Looking Down and Around ; 6. Calamity: Sheerness, Chatham, Camden Town, Marshalsea, Somers Town ; 7. Young Dickens: Return to Norfolk Street, Young Professional, First Essays ; 8. Workhouse: St Paul's Parish, Farming the Infant Poor, Paul Pry, Parliament ; 9. Works: Contemporaries, Sketches, Spectres, Oliver Twist, Names, Echoes ; 10. The Most Famous Workhouse in the World: Truth and Fiction ; Appendix ; Notes ; Index