First published in 1981, this book examines the life of Arthur Harding, a well-known figure in the East End underworld during the first half of the twentieth century. The first five chapters survey his life in the ‘Jago’ slum between 1887 and 1896, offering a different view of an often vilified district. The subsequent phases of his life as a cabinet-maker, street trader and wardrobe dealer reflect the changing fortunes of the East End from hand-to-mouth conditions in the late-nineteenth century to comparative security in the 1930s. The reader is introduced to some of the major features of East End life — back-street enterprise, neighbourhood solidarity, politics and popular culture. Among the many themes that can be traced are the relationship between the underworld and the local working-class community; the collusive understanding established between villains and the police; the effects of the criminalisation of street betting; and the relationship between Jews, non-Jews and what the author terms ‘half-jews’ in a district of high immigration. Drawn from transcripts of recorded reminiscences, this book provides an important text for understanding the political economy of crime — extended by the authors extensive footnotes and a preface discussing the peculiar moral complexion of south-west Bethnal Green.

In 1888, Whitechapel - at the heart of the inner East End - was the most (in)famous place in the country, widely imagined as a site of the blackest and deepest horror. Its streets and alleys were seen as violent and dangerous, overflowing with poverty and depravity. This book aims to uncover the reality of East End life. Sections look at slum housing, immigration, attitudes to women, poverty, violence and crime. The book examines how the brutal killings were reported and how the police tried to identify the murderer. A final section shows how Jack the Ripper has shaped our vision of London, and influenced our popular culture.Jack the Ripper and the East End Labyrinthcoincides with an exhibition organised by the Museum of London at their Museum in Docklands. Key surviving documents from the National Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives will be on display - in addition to material from the collections of the Museum of London such as photographs of the Whitechapel Mission. The illustrations for the book will include rare and unpublished photographs, sections of the 'master' Booth Map of Poverty, detectives' reports and original letters.The introduction will be written by Peter Ackroyd, who is the acknowledged expert on London, its darker aspects and how its history has seeped into its very stones. Leading historians and curators will provide additional insights. This is a book which will be valued for years to come for its enduring and important portrait of the Victorian East End.

In 1888 London was the capital of the most powerful empire the world had ever known, and the largest city in Europe. In the west a new city was growing, populated by the middle classes, the epitome of 'Victorian values'. Across the city the situation was very different. The East End of London had long been considered a nether world, a dark and dangerous region outside the symbolic 'walls' of the original City. Using the Whitechapel murders of Jack the Ripper as a focal point, this book explores prostitution, poverty, revolutionary politics, immigration, the creation of a criminal underclass and the development of policing. It also considers how the sensationalist 'new journalism' took the news of the Ripper murders to all corners of the Empire and to the United States. This is an important book for those interested in the history of Victorian Britain.

In 1896, author Arthur Morrison gained notoriety for his bleak and violent A Child of the Jago, a slum novel that captured the desperate struggle to survive among London’s poorest. When a reviewer accused Morrison of exaggerating the depravity of the neighborhood on which the Jago was based, he incited the era’s most contentious public debate about the purpose of realism and the responsibilities of the novelist. In his self-defense and in his wider body of work, Morrison demonstrated not only his investments as a formal artist, but also his awareness of social questions. As the first critical essay collection on Arthur Morrison and the East End, this book assesses Morrison’s contributions to late-Victorian culture, especially discourses around English working-class life. Chapters evaluate Morrison in the context of Victorian criminality, child welfare, disability, housing, professionalism, and slum photography. Morrison’s works are also reexamined in the light of writings by Sir Walter Besant, Clementina Black, Charles Booth, Charles Dickens, George Gissing, and Margaret Harkness. This volume features an introduction and 11 chapters by preeminent and emerging scholars of the East End. They employ a variety of critical methodologies, drawing on their respective expertise in literature, history, art history, sociology, and geography. Critical Essays on Arthur Morrison and the East End throws fresh new light on this innovative novelist of poverty and urban life.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Blue Bloods and Witches of East End After they cause a terrible accident at their old high school, twin witches Mardi and Molly Overbrook are sent to live with their “Aunt” Ingrid Beauchamp in North Hampton, on Long Island’s mist-shrouded East End. Because the twins cannot control their powers, their father begs Ingrid to tame them over the summer, before the White Council exiles the girls to Limbo. Trouble continues to bubble and boil when the girls meet the younger Gardiner boys, who are just as handsome and sexy as their older kin. But all is not as it seems. As Ingrid helps the girls learn to control their magical impulses, Mardi and Molly have just this summer to figure out how to grow up, how to love, and how to be a family.