14 h 6 minAudiobook5 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the darkest forest lies not overseas, but in the streets where hungry people sleep?
In In Darkest England, and the Way Out, William Booth turns attention toward the poor of Victorian Britain. The founder of the Salvation Army describes street sleepers, slum dwellers and workers trapped by low pay. He asks why suffering abroad draws sympathy while hunger and homelessness close to home remain beyond the reach of much charity.
Booth writes as a preacher and fundraiser, not a detached observer. He first names the causes of misery, then sets out his proposed escape route: city shelters and workshops, farm colonies in England, and a colony overseas. His urgent question runs through the plan: what practical help gives people a chance to stand again?
What you’ll discover
- A forest beneath London See how Booth turns an image of distant forests toward suffering in familiar streets.
- The Cab Horse Charter Explore his humane demand that a fallen person receive the help given a fallen horse.
- Food, shelter and work Follow the City Colony proposal, where immediate relief connects with workshops and practical work.
- Help for particular needs Discover why Booth proposes special help for women, prisoners and people struggling with drink.
- A path beyond the city Examine his proposed farm colonies and overseas settlement as further stages of his scheme.
Who will love it
For readers who love Victorian history, social reform and debates about charity and poverty, and anyone curious about how the Salvation Army began.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A forest lies beneath London
- Every person deserves what a cab horse gets
- Three million people form the submerged tenth
- Drink, low pay and idleness trap the poor
- The City Colony gives food, shelter and work
- Special rescues reach women, prisoners and drinkers
- The Farm Colony turns town idlers into farmers
- The Colony Over the Sea opens new land
- Critics, costs and the lasting mark
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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L’Angleterre la plus sombre et le moyen d’en sortir
by William Booth · 1890
William Booth enters London's forest of hunger and homelessness with a plan for food, shelter and a chance to work.
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In short
What if the darkest jungle lay not in Africa but under the lamps of London? With help from an unnamed friend of the poor, he takes the explorer Stanley's forest as a picture of misery at home.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A forest lies beneath London
Booth takes Stanley's tale of the African forest and turns it toward home. He says the same gloom, disease and hunger can be found within sight of the biggest city in the world.
He describes men and women sleeping on the benches of the Thames Embankment, on bridge steps and in doorways. Others pay a few pennies for a place in a crowded lodging house. Children grow up in crowded rooms unfit for healthy family life.
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What is In Darkest England, and the Way Out about?
It is William Booth's 1890 study of poverty in Britain and his plan to end it. The first half describes the homeless, the unemployed and the sweated poor. The second sets out city shelters, farm colonies and an overseas colony.
What does the title In Darkest England mean?
It borrows from Henry Morton Stanley's book on Africa, published the same year. Booth compares the slums of English cities to a dark forest, arguing that suffering at home deserves as much attention as distant lands.
What is the Cab Horse Charter?
It is Booth's minimum standard for help. A London cab horse that falls is lifted up, fed and sheltered so it can work again. Booth asks that every person be given the same: food, shelter and a chance to work.
The author
William Booth
1829–1912 · British preacher and Salvationist founder
William Booth was born in Nottingham, England, in 1829 and died in London in 1912. He was a Methodist preacher. In 1865, he and his wife, Catherine, founded a mission in London that became the Salvation Army. He published In Darkest England and the Way Out in 1890.
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