British historian brought Dickensian London to real and vivid life. Until now, our view of bustling late Georgian and Victorian London has been filtered through its great chroniclers - Dickens, Mayhew, Gustave Dore. Their visions were dazzling in their way, censorious, often theatrical, but always those of outsiders. Now, for the first time, this innovative social history brilliantly - and radically - shows us the city's most compelling period (1780-1870) at street level. From beggars and thieves to musicians and missionaries, porters and hawkers to sex workers and street criers, Jensen unites a breadth of original research and first-hand accounts and testimonies to tell their stories in their own words. What emerges is a buzzing, cosmopolitan world of the working classes, diverse in gender, ethnicity, origin, ability and occupation - a world that challenges and fascinates us still.