The devil's highway : urban anxieties and subaltern cultures in London's sailortown, c.1850-1900 /Brad Beaven.

"Between 1850 and 1900, Ratcliffe Highway - branded the 'devil's highway' - was the pulse of maritime London. Sailors from every corner of the globe found solace, and sometimes trouble, in this bustling bars, brothels, lodging houses, and streets. For social investigators, it was perceived as a place of fascination and fear, as it harboured 'exotic' and 'heathen' communities. This book goes beyond conceptualising London's sailortown as a global economic hub that entangled sailors into vice and exploitation. It examines how, by the mid-nineteenth century, anxieties relating to urban modernity encouraged Victorians to re-imagine Ratcliffe Highway as a chaotic and dangerous urban abyss."