A comparative study in urban history, Victorian Cities examines the 19th-century history of four developing cities in England in a period of rapid growth, with chapters on London and Melbourne and references to Los Angeles and Chicago as well.

Asa Briggs, former provost of Worcester College, Oxford, is the author of many works on 19th-century British history.

"Fair-minded and compassionate, [Briggs] has a profound sense of the difficulties that accompanied urbanization."—Herman Ausubel, New York Times Book Review

"An examination of the Victorian attempt to come to terms with the anarchic cities of the industrial revolution in England between the start of the railway age in the 1830s to the beginning of their dispersal by the automobile at the end of the century. . . . [Briggs] is thorough. He reawakens one's respect for the moral energy and dramatic style of the Victorians."—V. S. Pritchett, New York Review of Books

"The 19th century is the first age in human history in which it became normal for most citizens to live in cities. . . . Professor Briggs's book reminds us of our own failings, and this is among its great merits. Though he has selected only a few urban themes for full discussion, he incidentally illuminates many more."—E. J. Hobsbawm, New Statesman