Sarah Wise

I’ve been a Londoner since 1978 and I absolutely love my city. Since childhood, I’ve been fascinated by the Victorians, and I’ve been lucky enough to turn my interest into a job. I teach 19th-century social history and literature at the University of California’s London Outreach Center; and my specialisms are London/urban history, working-class history, medical history, psychogeography and 19th-century literature and reportage.

I’m the author of four books about social history, and these have formed the basis of the courses I teach at Mary Ward. They are:
‘The Italian Boy’, shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and awarded the Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger;
‘The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum’, shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize;
‘Inconvenient People’, shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize;
and my most recent, ‘The Undesirables – The Law that Locked Away A Generation’.

My TV work includes providing background material for BBC1’s ‘Secret History of Our Streets’, and BBC2’s ‘The Victorian Slum’, and I’ve twice been the history expert on ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’

The best sessions with students happen when we get a seminar feeling going, all sharing our points of view. I am so lucky with my learners — it is a total joy to teach adults (I learn so much from them!!).

Find me online: 
Website: https://misssarahwise.co.uk/