Abstract

In his ceaseless subdivisions and detours, Henry Mayhew invites a reading of London Labour and the London Poor that argues against its own purported taxonomical endeavor. Supposing a non-taxonomical Mayhew, then, this essay argues that the generic categories that most accurately record the collaborative effort of Mayhew and his subjects are portraiture and the performances of the depicted figures. I delineate the principles of what I call Victorian visual ethics to ask questions about the relationship between perception and judgment when confronting physically aberrant subjects. Looking at one exemplary figure in Mayhew, “The Street-Seller of Nutmeggraters,” I demonstrate how such subjects—utilizing the conventions of performance and portraiture—engage in acts of strategic self-fashioning in order to shape the terms of the visual encounter.

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