'… a pleasure to observe the dexterity with which Bailey handles his material.' The Times Literary Supplement

• Introduction: social history, cultural studies and the cad; 1. The Victorian middle class and the problem of leisure; 2. A role analysis of working-class respectability; 3. Ally Soper's half-holiday: comic art in the 1880s; 4. Business and good fellowship in the London music hall; 5. Champagne Charlie and the music hall swell song: 6. Music-hall and the knowingness of popular culture; 7. The Victorian barmaid as cultural prototype; 8. Musical comedy and the rhetoric of the girl, 1892–1914; 9. Breaking the sound barrier; Notes; Index.

'… a pleasure to observe the dexterity with which Bailey handles his material.' The Times Literary Supplement

• Introduction: social history, cultural studies and the cad; 1. The Victorian middle class and the problem of leisure; 2. A role analysis of working-class respectability; 3. Ally Soper's half-holiday: comic art in the 1880s; 4. Business and good fellowship in the London music hall; 5. Champagne Charlie and the music hall swell song: 6. Music-hall and the knowingness of popular culture; 7. The Victorian barmaid as cultural prototype; 8. Musical comedy and the rhetoric of the girl, 1892–1914; 9. Breaking the sound barrier; Notes; Index.