The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum
by Sarah Wise

In 1887 Government inspectors were sent to explore the horrifying – often lethal – living conditions of the Old Nichol, a notorious 15-acre slum in London's East End. Among much else they found that the rotting 100-year-old houses were some of the most lucrative properties in the capital for their absent slumlords. Journalists, the clergy, charity workers and others condemned its 6,000 inhabitants for their drunkenness and criminality

Author of the prize-winning The Italian Boy, Sarah Wise explores the real lives behind the statistics – the woodworkers, fish smokers, street hawkers and many more. She excavates the Old Nichol from the ruins of history, laying bare the social and political conditions that created and sustained this black hole which lay at the very heart of the Empire.