Books, City and Country, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Out of the London Mud Come the London Cabbages

A friend is reading Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World – and she’s been regaling me with stories of toshers, pure-finders, mudlarks and the sewers of Victorian London.  Here’s how the book begins: It is August 1854, and London is a city of scavengers. Just…

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