Portraits of Children of the Mobility

Portraits of Children of the Mobility is an 1841 satire by Percival Leigh (1813-1889), the Punch writer, with drawings by John Leech. The book parodies the fashionable gift albums of portraits of children of the nobility by presenting instead the children of the mobility, the London street poor, sketched with mock-genteel captions. Under the joke runs sharp social observation of urchins, crossing-sweepers, and slum life that points toward the social conscience of Dickens’s decade. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.