In 1894, slum-dwellers in the Old Nichol in London's East End may have been perplexed by the presence of a new figure accompanying the parish priest, the Reverend Arthur Osborne Jay, on his daily rounds. Determined to write a novel that accurately reflected the squalor and degradation of London's poorest and allegedly most criminal neighborhood, Arthur Morrison spent eighteen months shadowing Jay and recording the district's complex social codes. The result was a novel that raised disturbing questions about the alleged lawlessness of the slum, the effectiveness of philanthropic interventions in the lives of the poor, the evidence of moral decay and biological degeneration among the most deprived, and the proper role of the novelist. Vivid and unsentimental, A Child of the Jago is a unique portrait of Victorian London.This Broadview Edition provides the literary, socio-historical, and philosophical contexts vital to readers' understanding and appreciation of the novel. Historical appendices include materials on the debate over the novel's accuracy, philanthropy, eugenics, and working-class women.