Charles Booth (1840-1916) - photo 1
Charles Booth (1840-1916) - photo 2
Charles Booth (1840-1916) - photo 3
Charles Booth (1840-1916) - photo 4

Charles Booth (1840-1916)

Starting price
£ 4 000
Auction dateClassic
09.12.2020 00:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
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ID 470216
Lot 86 | Charles Booth (1840-1916)
Charles Booth (1840-1916)

Life and Labour of the People in London. 1902-1903

BOOTH, Charles (1840-1916). Life and Labour of the People in London. First Series: Poverty … Second Series: Industry … Third Series: Religious Influences … Final Volume: Notes on social influences and conclusion. London: Macmillan and Co, 1902-1903.



The final and most comprehensive review of poverty in London, illustrated by 20 of Booth’s famous ‘poverty’ maps. Booth and his team embarked on a landmark social and economic survey that found that 35% of Londoners lived in poverty. The accompanying maps are lithographed on a scale of 6 inches to one mile, each with a key showing the streets colour-coded according to the wealth of the inhabitants, ranging from black (‘Lowest class’) through shades of blue and purple (‘Very poor’, ‘Moderate Poverty’, ‘Poverty & Comfort [mixed]’), to red (‘Well to-do’); the ‘Wealthy’ are colour-coded in yellow. He began in 1887 with a pilot survey of Tower Hamlets and continued for fifteen years. He and his small army of researchers gathered as much information as they could through a great variety of sources: interviews, questionnaires, reports from London school board visitors, and house-to-house visits. While the two previous editions of his work had focussed on a detailed scientific analysis of ‘Poverty’ and ‘Industry’, with this third edition Booth used the subsequent 7 volumes of ‘Religious Influences’ to focus on less objective ‘impressions’ and ‘attitudes’, with much success, as it gave ‘the religious series … a unity and pointedness that the earlier series … lacked’ (Fried and Elman, Charles Booth’s London, 1969, p. xxxv).



17 volumes, octavo (209 x 140mm). Half-titles, 87 graphs, 3 of which folding, one black and white map, 15 maps in the text, 20 coloured ‘poverty’ maps backed on linen, all but one folding, each with original key (lacking the map of Inner London showing places of worship, elementary schools and public houses that should be in the flap on rear pastedown of final volume, occasional scattered spotting to text, vols 15 and 16 with minor marginal staining, a few roughly opened gatherings with associated marginal chips and tears, one leaf in vol. 16 almost torn in two). Original publisher’s vellum, gilt spines, gilt top edges, others uncut (many gatherings unopened, spines darkened and soiled, final volume with head of spine cracked and split and almost detached, extremities rubbed). Provenance: T.C. Witherby (contemporary pencilled annotation and ownership inscriptions in a few vols) – ‘Reference. Not to be taken out of the house’ (paper library labels on upper covers, lacking from vol. 4).

Place of origin:Northern Europe
Category:Book
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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