If Jack the Ripper no longer haunted the dark streets, then crime, alcoholism and unexplained epidemic disease still brought terror and sudden, brutal death. A little further on is the East End where the poor and despised could eke out a perilous living far from their birthplace in Ireland, Africa, India, Asia, and Eastern Europe (like Dickens’s Fagin). Observing the “teeming millions” in his professional role as manager of the London’s Lyceum Theatre, Bram Stoker’s view also included many celebrities, such as Arthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes fame) and Oscar Wilde.Ĭlose by the Lyceum’s grand doors are the markets of Covent Garden, where poor girls (like Bernard Shaw’s Eliza Doolittle) sold flowers to passing crowds. The London of the 1890s was a glamorous place – and a dangerous one. In our Guide to the Classics series, experts explain key works of literature.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |