London Labour and the London Poor Volume I: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

London Labour and the London Poor Volume I, credited to Henry Mayhew, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of London Labour and the London Poor Volume I by Henry Mayhew. Read in English by Peter Yearsley Subtitled, "A Cyclopaedia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work." "The history of a people from the lips of the people themselves .. their labour, earnings, trials and sufferings, in their own unvarnished language, and to pourtray the condition of their homes and their families by personal observation of the places ..." "My earnest hope is that the book may serve to give the rich a more intimate knowledge of the sufferings, and the frequent heroism under those sufferings, of the poor ..." Henry Mayhew was a social researcher and journalist; he compiled a four volume work in minute detail on the lives of the poor in London, of which this is the first volume, published in 1851. (Peter Yearsley) Notes: 1 The reader has attempted different voices to separate the interviewees from the narrator, but makes no claim to the accents being appropriate to the speakers. 2 Very occasionally, the language used may be uncomfortable to a modern listener. 3 Sections 34, 52, and 89 consist of analyses of the data collected in the preceding sections. Mayhew himself implies that it might not be too interesting for some of his readers. Listeners to this recording could miss out these sections without fear that they are missing much. 4 Where expletives and proper names have been abbreviated in the text as, for example, "D---d", or "Mrs M---", these have been rendered as "D blank D" and "Mrs M blank" as appropriate. 5 There are some pages of errata at the end of the book, which mainly involve corrections to the many numbers given in the text. The corrections have been included in the recording. However, many arithmetical errors still exist; these have been left unchanged. Definitions and slang: 1 In Mayhew's time, a chandler was a dealer in household items such as oil, soap, paint, and groceries. 2 "ing-uns" are frequently mentioned as being sold by the costermongers. This is clarified in the text as being their name for onions. 3 The phrase "Han-sellers" in section 55 is clarified as "hand-sellers" in a later section. 4 A "pottle" is a volume of half a gallon (four pints). 5 A quartern loaf weighs four pounds. 6 "Sawney" is bacon. 7 "Tin" is a nickname for money in general, while a "brown" is the nickname for a copper/bronze coin (a farthing, half-penny, penny, etc.). 8 A "wink" seller sells periwinkles. 9 "Woman- (or girl-) of the streets" seems often to be a euphemism for prostitutes.

Recording facts

• Recording title: London Labour and the London Poor Volume I
• Author credits: Henry Mayhew
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 89
• Listed recording duration: 53:21:45

Opening tracks: first 24 of 89

1. 01 - Preface; The Street-Folk - part 1 — 30:49
2. 02 - The Street-Folk - part 2 — 31:21
3. 03 - The Street-Folk - part 3 — 34:35
4. 04 - The Street-Folk - part 4 — 31:23
5. 05 - The Street-Folk - part 5 — 33:25
6. 06 - The Street-Folk - part 6 — 39:33
7. 07 - The Street-Folk - part 7 — 30:47
8. 08 - The Street-Folk - part 8 — 49:39
9. 09 - The Street-Folk - part 9 — 56:30
10. 10 - The Street-Folk - part 10 — 33:47
11. 11 - The Street-Folk - part 11 — 37:07
12. 12 - The Street-Folk - part 12 — 40:29
13. 13 - The Street-Folk - part 13 — 26:58
14. 14 - The Street-Folk - part 14 — 36:57
15. 15 - The Street-Folk - part 15 — 31:18
16. 16 - The Street-Folk - part 16 — 57:30
17. 17 - The Street-Folk - part 17 — 41:23
18. 18 - The Street-Folk - part 18 — 47:48
19. 19 - The Street-Folk - part 19 — 41:23
20. 20 - The Street-Folk - part 20 — 26:14
21. 21 - The Street-Folk - part 21 — 51:27
22. 22 - The Street-Folk - part 22 — 47:28
23. 23 - The Street-Folk - part 23 — 54:55
24. 24 - The Street-Folk - part 24 — 38:44

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This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.