Dens of London Exposed

London: Printed For and Published by the Author, 1835. Full description:

[DUNCOMBE, John]. The Dens of London Exposed. London: Printed For and Published by the Author, 1835.

First edition [?]. Small octavo (6 3/4 x 4 1/4 inches; 172 x 110 mm). xv, [1, blank], 106, [2, blank] pp. With half-title. Hand-colored frontispiece by Joe Lisle entitled "The Cadgers Home." We could find no other copies of this edition at auction in the past forty years.

Contemporary quarter green paper over publisher's drab boards, rebacked to style. Printed paper labels on front board and spine. Leaves uncut. Inner margin tight at frontispiece, (truncated) slight;y obscuring the caption. Boards bumped, rubbed and a bit soiled. 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 69226.

$1,250. (Inventory #: 69226)