"The Dens of London Exposed"
Dens of London Exposed. Third Edition.
London: Printed For and Published by the Author, 1835.
Full Description:
[DUNCOMBE, John]. The Dens of London Exposed. Third Edition. London: Printed For and Published by the Author, 1835.
[also printed on recto of title page]
[DUNCOMBE, John]. A Peep into the Holy Land; or, Sinks of London laid open! Forming a Pocket Companion for the Uninitiated. : Cadging Made Easy I, Doings of the Modern Greeks. Unfinished Gentlemen at Home! Snoozing Kens Depicted. Description of the Cribs. City Aldermen Outdone. Stakes and Beef Steaks. Crockford's in Miniature. What's Trumps? -"flats to be Sure, what Tips!" A Picture of the Literary Fund Society. The He-she Man. The Common Lodging House. a Model of a Regular Cadger. The Thieves School. The Brothel! Good Advice from an Old Ranger. A Lesson to Lovers of Dice. The Cadging House Gallant. The Gaming Table. Saturday Night in St. Giles's. The Ladies of the Pave. The Wind-up. A Free and Easy. A Picture, Etc. London: John Wilson. [n.d.c.a.1835].
Third edition. Small octavo (6 1/2 x 4 3/16 inches; 166 x 106 mm). [2], 106 pp. With hand-colored frontispiece. Recto of frontispiece is page xv of contents from "Dens of London." We could find no other copies of this edition at auction in the past forty years.
Contemporary quarter brown morocco over marbled boards. Boards bumped and rubbed. Title-pages leaf a bit soiled and toned. A repair to upper outer corner of page [1]. Internally very clean. A very good copy of this rare item.
"One of the first exposés of the ‘cadging houses’ in St Giles Rookery, an area that influenced Dickens’s creation of Tom-All-Alone’s in Bleak House. This book gives an account of the living conditions of ‘cadgers’, street workers and ‘that class denominated unfortunate.’ The children living in such lodgings were often runaways and orphans and, although safer than some options, living alongside the men and women of the ‘lowest classes’ in these dens was seen to inevitably lead to a life of crime and ruin. The book is an example of the Victorian appetite for works documenting the lives of the poor for the enlightenment, or possibly entertainment, of the middle classes. (University of London).
HBS 69227.
$1,000.
Price: $1,000.00
Item #69227