Talk:Round About a Pound a Week

Untitled
I've been looking for some nice secondary sources, so we can discuss the relevance of the book to the social history of Britain and to today, and perhaps its impact. The problem is finding reliable sources that discuss it properly. I don't think we can use nzine, a New Zealand online magazine, because I don't think it qualifies which is unfortunate since it covered some good stuff. Is History Today a reliable source? I don't have a subscription, but there's an article whose beginning looks promising. This Guardian article mentions in passing that it is a 'classic', but nothing more is said. Lots of places use it in bibliographies or as a source. I suppose what we really need is some sort of textbook on a relevant subject. I might be able to search a university library for such things, but don't let that restrain you from searching yourself. Skittle (talk) 17:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Secondary source
User: Skittle contacted me to recommend Bee Wilson's Swindled: " a history of food adulteration, with the emphasis so far being on 18th and 19th century Britain. It's very readable, and certain parts connected up with Round About a Pound a Week in my head. For example, the 1850 scandal where "a large number of orphans in Drouitt's Institute for pauper children died, as a result of their oatmeal being padded with barleymeal", and yet the same thing happened again and again: compare with the angry passages in Round about a pound a week, discussing the well-meaning suggestion that poor mothers should feed their children porridge. It's full of discussion and facts about how and why people let adulteration and short-changing get so bad..." Sounds like a useful source. BrainyBabe (talk) 07:37, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The People of the Abyss
The People of the Abyss by Jack London is another non-fiction account of poverty in east London published in 1903. 78.146.176.116 (talk) 20:08, 10 May 2010 (UTC)