Nether World

Drew D. Gray is Head of Culture (Humanities, Media, Performance) at the Faculty of Arts, Science & Technology, University of Northampton. His publications include London’s Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City (2010). He authors a blog, thepolicemagistrate.blog, and has made a number of appearances on TV, radio and podcasts.

"Gray tunnels deeper into one particularly rich seam, London’s police courts . . . the author throws light on the full caseload of police court dealings – the drunks, the thieves, the sex attackers, the thugs, the beggars, the penny capitalists, whose means of subsistence rubbed them against the forces of law and order daily, and more . . . he shows us the Victorian police court as a kaleidoscopic theatre of real life: he is an invaluable compere." - Jerry White, Times Literary Supplement"With Nether World, Drew D. Gray offers a lively and insightful picture of a quintessential Victorian institution, the London Police courts. Focusing on the courts’ ubiquitous portrayals in newspapers and their employment as rich fodder for journalists seeking to portray the dramatic and the melodramatic, Gray brings these courts and their colourful denizens into vivid focus. Readers interested in law, crime, sensation, popular journalism and the history of working-class trials and tribulations in Victorian London will all find much to engage with in this well-written and insightful work." - Sascha Auerbach, Associate Professor of History, University of Nottingham, and author of Armed with Sword and Scales: Law, Culture, and Local Courtrooms in London, 1860–1913