Anthony E. Simpson; W. An unprecedented range of key resources in the history of nineteenth-century crime can be viewed by almost anyone, anywhere, at any time. Furthermore, advances in scanning technology have meant that the primary sources which appear on our screens are ever closer to the originals that we find in the archives.
Yet there is a flipside to this movement. Rightly or wrongly, those wishing to publish anthologies of sources in printed book form have found themselves under increasing pressure to justify the use of this traditional method of presentation, first to publishers and second, and more importantly, to readers or purchasers. On the face of it, the publication of these anthologies makes sense in terms of their marketability as the subject matter is especially appealing.
For the most part, the set focuses on the nineteenth-century underworld, mainly in London, each volume carving out a particular theme, respectively: prostitution and the lucrative market in the forced seduction of young virgins; execution and its attendant crowd; and the homeless who sheltered at night in the casual wards of the Victorian workhouses.
At the same time, however, all the primary sources featured in the three volumes are well-known by nineteenth-century scholars and, with only a few exceptions from the last volume, Vicarious Vagrants, all are accessible online, some as scanned copies of the originals. In such circumstances, these books need to demonstrate a scholarly purpose beyond satisfying the often fickle interests of the general public.
In particular, the wide socio-historical surveys of prostitution, execution and vagrancy highlight the usefulness of these books for undergraduates. Yet, at the same time, I think the editors could have been even more ambitious, and through their choice and positioning of these primary sources offer a challenge or at least a fresh contribution to the existing historiography on crime, society and culture in nineteenth-century England.
