Five... things Max Schlesinger really hated about Victorian London
Brace yourselves
Hi and welcome to your weekend newsletter…
First-off, a sorry for the newsletter pause last weekend. I’ve been juggling a few deadlines — and as they’re ongoing I’m letting Max Schlesinger do a lot of the heavy lifting for this week’s edition.
I developed a mild obsession with Schlesinger while doing some background research on the history of Smithfield Market for the newsletter earlier this month, and specifically his 1853 book Saunterings in and about London1, an outstandingly detailed, often very funny, often pretty snide, epic-in-scale travelogue charting his explorations around the city. Although I’m still dipping in and out of it — yet to sit down and read it cover to cover — I’m going to give it a strong 11/10 for anybody into London’s Victorian past: not the big, government-level machinery of power and the events that made the history books, but the more day-to-day habits, the cultural landscape, the regular interactions and, often, annoyances of everyday life in the city.
I’ve collected a handful of my favourites so far, but if they give the impression that Schlesinger was wandering London in a perennial mood, it’s not the case: there are as many exuberant passages — marvelling at the beauty of the city’s parks, the glorious efficiency of the London omnibus, the unique hardiness of the English character… There’s probably a future Five Things Max Schlesinger Adored Unremittingly About Victorian London in it, but for now I’m sticking to the things he cheerfully loathed.
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