HENRY MAYHEW (1812-1887) AND

authentic 'off the beaten track' places ia ~ordoa'" left an Wble mark on London
Lobour as well as otkr Victorian writers i nflud by hidw such as his cmteqmary.
Charles Dickens. who. at one level. also brilliantly pmrayed mimaic ~ultures.~"
Dickens' shift to the inside wald was not so much a shift into the protected private
family wald that reinfad these images of the 'primitive*, the poor, the ethnic outsick
as dregs living outside of official bourgeois culture, as it was a shift towards an inner
"Other'' public where rites of passage such as birth, family life, and death remained
largely public affairs. Dickens ' "Other" world critiqued the outside bourgeois world fiom
within such as the Venmings. in Our Mumi Friend, who were the nouveau-rick in
their brand-new house in brand-new quarters of Landoa Dickens and Mayhew both
attempted to redeem forgotten peoples. They ammpted to redeem the illiterate, and in an
extended sense, the primitive and unknown Mayhew kept the act of reading about
London perfamative. The idedogical creation UILfdded externally betweer! his readers
and himself. Discussing city smells. f a instance, Mayhew stated that '2ondon denizens"
were basically "unconscious of tk fact" that the streets of London "smell of dung like a
stable-yard" In fact, he realized that "familiarity with streets of crowded traffic d eab
the sense to he perception of their actual condition" IM
Using familiar images to
augment his written texts, he referred directly to "tk cchlmney-sweep carr[ying] the
implement of his calling on his shoulder, in the way shown in tfre daguerr80type which I
have given" lo' and "the milkmen's garland (of which an engraving has been given)." 'On
'03 Buzzard, 1993, 6.
104
Mayhew, I: 102,
lo' Dickens seemed to transcend the Englisb novel: at me lev& the novel could be understood as
the 'inward-turn of the culture of danesticity' within itself @ran carversations with Dr. Zaslove).
'" bid., 367; see Appendix.