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Greatly expanded second edition, tripled in length from the first; Volume IX with a "from the author" slip tipped onto the title page. Booth's work is one of the major resources for the social and economic history of late Victorian London, based on years of surveys by a team of researchers at the house-to-house level. The work was first published in three volumes, 1889-91. The survey describes living and working conditions, the organization of trade and industry, the effects of national and international migration, and the leisure activities and religious life of the inhabitants of the capital. The maps are coloured street by street to indicate levels of poverty and wealth. Booth argued that chronic poverty lead to depravity, and that its reduction was a crucial issue for local and national government. "The significance of Booth's survey was hotly debated at the time, and continues to be so a century later. Some have claimed him as one of the founding fathers of sociology or of empirical social science, whereas others have suggested that, despite its huge accumulation of facts, the survey had little or no explanatory validity. Some have portrayed Booth's poverty findings as a crucial influence on the growth of the welfare state; whereas others have concluded that Booth's practical influence on social policy was negligible... Current research on Booth has moved away from this type of question, and has concentrated less upon the survey's scientific strengths and Greatly expanded second edition, tripled in length from the first; Volume IX with a "from the author" slip tipped onto the title page. Booth's work is one of the major resources for the social and economic history of late Victorian London, based on years of surveys by a team of researchers at the house-to-house level. The work was first published in three volumes, 1889-91. The survey describes living and working conditions, the organization of trade and industry, the effects of national and international migration, and the leisure activities and religious life of the inhabitants of the capital. The maps are coloured street by street to indicate levels of poverty and wealth. Booth argued that chronic poverty lead to depravity, and that its reduction was a crucial issue for local and national government. "The significance of Booth's survey was hotly debated at the time, and continues to be so a century later. Some have claimed him as one of the founding fathers of sociology or of empirical social science, whereas others have suggested that, despite its huge accumulation of facts, the survey had little or no explanatory validity. Some have portrayed Booth's poverty findings as a crucial influence on the growth of the welfare state; whereas others have concluded that Booth's practical influence on social policy was negligible... Current research on Booth has moved away from this type of question, and has concentrated less upon the survey's scientific strengths and deficiencies and more on its status as a unique historical archive; as a documentary periscope into the assumptions, beliefs, and anxieties of one of the major protagonists of the late Victorian era" (ODNB). READ MORE Nine vols, octavo. Original blue cloth, spines ruled and lettered in gilt. With many charts and figures in each volume. Pencilled ownership signature of Joseph Crompton to the title page of vols V, VII, & VIII, possibly the Australian manufacturer and exporter of that name (1840-1901); library stamp to front free endpaper of vols. I & II of Juridiska Föreningens Biblotek; vol. VI with shelf label at foot, bookplate to front pastedown, and perforated stamp to title page of the Fellowes Athenaeum of Boston Public Library. Lightly rubbed, minor loss to a few spine ends, endpapers a little foxed. A good set.