The Dark Side of the Victorian City
by Drew D. Gray, D. Gray
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In 1888 London was the capital of the greatest empire the world had ever known. In the West End the glittering lamps illuminated the homes of the rich and the emporiums that displayed the countless luxuries that they enjoyed. This was a city that reflected the wealth of the Victorian age, but there was also a dark side to Victorian London: vice and crime, degradation, poverty and despair. When an unknown killer began murdering prostitutes in Whitechapel the horrors of the East End were brought out of the shadows. 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 End 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 place, and it embodied many of the fears of respectable Victorians. Using the Whitechapel murders of Jack the Ripper as a focal point, London's Shadows explores prostitution and poverty, revolutionary politics and Irish terrorism, immigration, the criminal underclass and the developing role of the Metropolitan Police. It also considers how the sensationalist New Journalism took the news of the Ripper murders to the furthest corners of the Empire. This is a new and fresh portrait of London at the height of Victoria's reign, revealing the dark underbelly of the city's history.
