Donald Thomas shows us, through the eyes of its inhabitants, the teeming underbelly of a world more often associated with gentility and high culture.

Defined by night houses and cigar divans, populated by street people like the running-patterer with his news of murder, and entertainers like the Fire King, the underworld was an insular yet diffuse community, united by its deep hatred of the police. In its gin shops and taverns, hard by the fashionable West End, thrived thieves and beggars, cheats, forgers, and pickpockets, preying on rich and poor alike.

Bringing to light the ugly realities of daily life in the underworld, Thomas also tours the convict hulks and Dickensian prisons of the day to paint a grim picture of the losers in the mounting war on crime.