Beyond the metropolis: The changing image of urban Britain, 1780-1880

Dark satanic mills, cobbled streets and cholera have become common shorthand for the nineteenth-century British town. Over the past century historical reality has merged seamlessly with mythology, literature and caricature to create a dramatic but utterly misleading representation of the urban past. Drawing on pictorial and ephemeral sources that shaped the popular image of British towns, Beyond the metropolis revises our understanding of urbanisation, its representation and interpretation ...