London Voices, 1820-1840

'Hah!' Finally, a book that makes sense of the city of London through its manifold voices. The cast of characters is motley--from ballad singers to prima donnas--and the repertoire a cosmopolitan mix. Through voices musical, political, metaphorical, anatomical, and mechanical, these essays not only amplify our understanding of nineteenth-century London, they show why voice mattered then as much as it does now. --Laura Tunbridge, University of Oxford The volume in your hands begins as a riotously evocative guide to a resonant aural world and ends as the most intelligent meditation I know on the historical consolidation of voice as an index of modern political life. There is no more convincing account of the moral and commercial importance of voice. Moving deftly from ballad singers to celebrity divos, from improvising singer-actresses to silver-fork novelists, from singing-class movements to castrati, from 'organ boys' to reform-minded music critics, this impressive collection makes the case for voice, showing why its use, representation, and regulation became so definitive of London's metropolitan order. The sheer proliferation of discourse--the range of voices heard and unheard--turns out to be the point. Read on! --James Q. Davies, University of California, Berkeley This innovative and important collection of essays tracks the politics of the musical 'voice' as it travels across classes, spaces, and boundaries in early nineteenth-century London. London Voices, 1820-1840 attends to the sounds of song that rose above the clatter and noise of the fastest-growing city in the world. Usefully disturbing the boundaries between elite and popular, this book argues for the power of the idea of 'voice' for diverse interest groups and initiatives at a time of political and social upheaval. London Voices, 1820-1840 offers a whole new way of hearing the period. --Clare Pettitt, King's College London