Hard Streets
Working-Class Lives in Charlie Chaplin's London
Will be published approx. on 5. February 2026
Book
Hardback
432 pages
978-1-80081-864-4 (ISBN)
Description
'HARD STREETS is a rich and emotive study of a world now lost that will leave readers stunned' Hallie Rubenhold, author of THE FIVE
Charlie Chaplin rose from the hard streets of Edwardian London to worldwide fame. But his work and outlook were always shaped by the world he came from, a place of cheap entertainments and the threat of the workhouse, radical politics and desperate poverty.
Framed through the life of this iconic success story, acclaimed historian Jacqueline Riding reveals working-class London in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Breathing life into forgotten stories of mothers and sons, labourers and actors, vagrants and sex workers, of suffering, survival and success against the odds, this compelling social history paints a striking portrait of a vanished city.
Charlie Chaplin rose from the hard streets of Edwardian London to worldwide fame. But his work and outlook were always shaped by the world he came from, a place of cheap entertainments and the threat of the workhouse, radical politics and desperate poverty.
Framed through the life of this iconic success story, acclaimed historian Jacqueline Riding reveals working-class London in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Breathing life into forgotten stories of mothers and sons, labourers and actors, vagrants and sex workers, of suffering, survival and success against the odds, this compelling social history paints a striking portrait of a vanished city.
Reviews / Votes
Remarkable in scope and detail, this impressive evocation of the tough world that produced Chaplin is fascinating and often profoundly moving -- Mike Leigh An enthralling journey through some of London's hardest streets, in the company of a writer of integrity and passion -- Lucy Worsley A compelling and richly detailed portrait of working-class life in a neglected corner of London -- Alwyn Turner, author of A SHELLSHOCKED NATION Through her painstaking research, Jacqueline Riding has reconstructed a thoroughly engrossing and visceral picture of 'how the other half lived' in Victorian London. The dirty, vibrant streets of Charlie Chaplin's childhood, the struggles of its inhabitants caught in the twisted web of work and poverty, addiction and temperance, violence and family life are sketched in uncomfortably vivid detail. Hard Streets is a rich and emotive study of a world now lost that will leave readers stunned -- Hallie Rubenhold, author of THE FIVE Praise for Hogarth: Wonderfully meandering and original * Guardian * Deft and richly detailed * Sunday Times * An excellent new biography -- Kathryn Hughes * Daily Mail * Marvellous and timely ... Jacqueline Riding makes sensitive and imaginative use of a wide range of often difficult and neglected sources ... a vivid and compelling reconstruction -- Linda Colley, author * The Gun, The Ship and the Pen *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 159 mm
Thickness: 42 mm
Weight
654 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80081-864-4 (9781800818644)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
02/2026
Profile Books Ltd
€28.49
Available for download
Person
Dr Jacqueline Riding is a historian and art historian specialising in British history and eighteenth century art. Former curator of the Palace of Westminster and Director of the Handel House Museum, her previous book Hogarth: A Life in Progress was a Sunday Times and Christie's Art Book of the Year.