The years 1840 to 1870 were years of dramatic change and achievement in London. As suburbs expanded and roads multiplied, the city was ripped apart to build railway lines and stations. Many practical innovations, such as flushing lavatories, underground railways, umbrellas and letter-boxes, were introduced.

But there was also appalling poverty and exploitation and, for the labouring classes, pay was pitifully low, the hours long and job security non-existent.

Liza Picard shows us the physical reality of daily life. She takes us into schools and prisons, churches and cemeteries. At least until the 1850's, London was a city of cholera outbreaks, transportation to Australia, public executions and the workhouse, where children could be sold by their parents for as little as £12.

In Victorian London, Liza Picard recreates the splendour and misery, the inventiveness and energy, the vices and pleasures of that extraordinary age.

Anton Lesser has played many of the principal roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company . He is also active in radio and spoken word audio, with a range from Paradise Lost and Homer to Shakespeare . He is particularly known for recording the novels of Charles Dickens , having won a Spoken Word Award for Great Expectations , For Orion, he has also read The Runes of the Earth by Stephen Donaldson .