The Great Stink: How London Built Its Sewers and Beat Cholera, 1858-75

In the summer of 1858, the stench from the Thames became so unbearable that Parliament draped its curtains in lime chloride and considered relocating. The Great Stink forced London to confront a crisis of its own making: a river choked with raw sewage, and a city in the grip of recurring cholera outbreaks that killed tens of thousands.This edition includes an original map of mid-Victorian London's sewer network, plus data-rich tables and timelines that trace the engineering, politics, and epidemiology step by step. Anecdotes are sourced to contemporary accounts and primary documents by name-from engineer Joseph Bazalgette's own reports to the diaries of MP John Thwaites-so you see exactly how the system was built and how the fight against cholera was won.For readers of narrative nonfiction and popular history who want the full, factual story of a city that rebuilt itself from the sewers up.