Henry Mayhew, from an account of a balloon flight in The Great World of London (1856). As found in Of Street Piemen, no. 26 in the Penguin Little Black Classics series (2015).
See also John Ruskin envisioning the earth from the sky.
Also from this volume
“Mee-yow,” “Bow-wow-wow!”
Wednesday, August 20, 2025
“Positively like planks”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
comments: 2
That's surprisingly lyrical coming from Henry Mayhew; I gather it's not excerpted from London Labour and the London Poor. I have the Oxford abridged edition of the latter, which has some fascinating oral histories. At some point I want to get hold of the four-volume Dover edition, which is complete.
Yes, it’s a little later. I want to read much more Mayhew — he’s the second big discovery for me in reading this Penguin series. (The first is the Buddhist monk Kenkō.)
Post a Comment