This is an important book for those interested in the history of Victorian Britain. It also considers how the sensationalist 'new journalism' took the news of the Ripper murders to all corners of the Empire and to the United States. Using the Whitechapel murders of Jack the Ripper as a focal point, this book explores prostitution, poverty, revolutionary politics, immigration, the creation of a criminal underclass and the development of policing.

The East End of London had long been considered a nether world, a dark and dangerous region outside the symbolic 'walls' of the original City.

Across the city the situation was very different. In the west a new city was growing, populated by the middle classes, the epitome of 'Victorian values'. In 1888 London was the capital of the most powerful empire the world had ever known, and the largest city in Europe. Using the Whitechapel murders of Jack the Ripper as a focal point, this book explores prostitution, poverty. His second book, London Shadows, a Study of Victorian Crime and Popular Culture, is due for publication in 2011. His latest research project is studying the caseload of a Northamptonshire magistrate in the mid eighteenth century. In 1888 London was the capital of the most powerful empire the world had ever known, and the largest city in Europe. DREW GRAY is Senior Lecturer in the History of Crime at the University of Northampton, UK.

London's Shadows by Drew D. Gray