The People of the Abyss

A work of immersion journalism. In 1902 London disguised himself in worn clothes and lived among the poor of London's East End, sleeping in doss-houses, workhouses and on the street. He records the hunger, overcrowding, low wages and insecurity he saw, and questions how such misery could exist in the heart of a wealthy empire. Part reportage, part social protest, the book remains a vivid record of Edwardian poverty.