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The Peripheries of London Slumland in George Gissing and Alexander Baron

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Literature and the Peripheral City

Abstract

Slums are examples of city peripheries. They are the streets and houses that people move to when they have nowhere else to go unless they sleep rough; the areas that immigrants first move to upon arriving in the city with few contacts and little money. But they are also places in which rules of conduct or boundaries of respectability which apply everywhere else can be relaxed. Victorian and post-Victorian London abounded in what could be called “slumland,” great quantities of informally subdivided older houses built for single families but let out in rooms.

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Authors
  1. Jason Finch
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Helsinki, Finland

    Lieven Ameel (Researcher) (Researcher)

  2. Åbo Akademi University, Finland

    Jason Finch (Lecturer in English Literature) (Lecturer in English Literature)

  3. University of Tampere, Finland

    Markku Salmela (University Lecturer in English Literature) (University Lecturer in English Literature)

Copyright information

© 2015 Jason Finch

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Finch, J. (2015). The Peripheries of London Slumland in George Gissing and Alexander Baron. In: Ameel, L., Finch, J., Salmela, M. (eds) Literature and the Peripheral City. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137492883_4

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