The cover page is adapted from Moonlight on the Thames, London, a painting completed in 1910 by Katherine Sophie Dreier. The cover and title pages feature the League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by The League of Moveable Type. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Sophie_Dreierwww.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
In Darkest London
Capítulos (16)
- Foreword 0:00
- I: “I Walked with Other Souls in Pain …” 1:18
- II: The Fight to Work 31:11
- III: The Hard-Faced Woman of Charity Square 48:50
- IV: The House in Kennedy Court 1:08:44
- V: The Price of a Bed 1:37:07
- VI: The Black Plush Coat 1:50:54
- VII: Knocking at the Gate 2:23:15
- VIII: The Awful Business of the Door-Handle 2:45:15
- IX: Kitty and the Widow Who Drugged 3:20:24
- X: A Very Gallant Gentleman 3:34:07
- XI: Womanhood—In Extremis 4:08:24
- XII: A Word to the Well-Fed 4:40:53
- XIII: The Trap of the Institution 4:57:58
- XIV: At St. Crispin’s 5:19:58
- XV: The Whole Conclusion of the Matter 5:34:33
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In 1925 the journalist Ada Elizabeth Chesterton decided on a dare to live on the streets of London. In Darkest London chronicles her two week experience.
What she found was a class of individuals, all without permanent homes, traveling between shelters in which overly bureaucratic organizations made life incredibly difficult. Chesterton concludes that the number of shelters, in particular those catering to women, were insufficient to handle the volume of people needing help, and those that did exist were too often unnecessarily restrictive. She claims that the government-run shelters in particular were designed not to help women, but to reform them, which are two very different propositions.
Chesterton portrays the women she meets sympathetically. At the time, there were many unflattering portraits of the homeless, some of which linger to this day. Claims of drug or alcohol problems, mental health issues, criminality, and low morals or intelligence are shown to be exaggerations if not outright fabrications. The problem of homelessness should instead be considered as both a political and an economic issue, which leads to the conclusion that people have a right to be treated with a dignity that was too often lacking.
The publication of In Darkest London led to increased interest in the lives of homeless people and improving public shelters. Chesterton herself went on to found the Cecil Houses, a system of shelters still in operation today, and named after her late husband Cecil Chesterton, G. K. Chesterton’s brother.