Mansions of Misery

This colourful, exuberant, brilliantly detailed account by Jerry White is the latest in a long list of irreplaceable books about London. – Simon Callow * Guardian *[It] is searching and brimful of intriguing characters. – John Carey * Sunday Times *[A] marvellous history of the Marshalsea Debtor’s Prison… In vivid prose White conjures a murky underworld of jailbird chancers and scufflers of one stripe or another. – Ian Thomson * Evening Standard - London Books of the Year *[An] excellent, detailed book. – Hermione Eyre * Spectator *A factual portrait of desperate and roughish Londoners that is as startling as anything in Dickens. Its wealth of anecdote and sympathetic style, spiced with witty observations makes this the very opposite of a miserable read. – George Goodwin * BBC History Magazine, Book of the Year *Fascinating. * The Times *[A] riveting, richly researched account. * Times Literary Supplement *The way White has written this book, it is as if the Marshalsea is a microcosm of life outside the walls in the London area. He shows that there was a complete mixture of inmates, rich and poor, fraudsters and hucksters, and many other colourful characters filled the prison. I found this to be a fascinating and engaging read about a place that people often forget was a dark shadow over many lives. Jerry White has written an engaging and very readable account of life in the Marshalsea and of London during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I am sure it will be a must read for all those interested in the social history of London for many years to come – Paul Diggett * Nudge *[A] colorful, exuberant, brilliantly detailed account… The latest in a long list of irreplaceable books about London – Simon Callow * Guaridan Weekly *White’s absorbing book is a salutary reminder of the realities of debt. – Catherine Peters * Literary Review *

Professor Jerry White teaches London history at Birkbeck, University of London. He is the author of an acclaimed trilogy of London from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. His more recent books include Mansions of Misery- A Biography of the Marshalsea Debtors’ Prison and Zeppelin Nights, a social history of London during the First World War. He was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature by the University of London in 2005 and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

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