A New Book Challenges The Image Of Mass Squalor In Victorian Britain

English actor Jack Wild (1952–2006) in costume as the Artful Dodger in the film production of the musical “Oliver!”, based on the novel “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens, Nov. 2 1967. In the novel, Oliver Twist is an orphan born in a workhouse. When he is later sold into an apprenticeship, he runs away and meets a gang of young pickpockets, including the Artful Dodger. (Larry Ellis/Express/Getty Images)

Mass squalor in Victorian Britain was a myth created by writers such as Charles Dickens — and the working class had many “luxury” items in their homes, a new book claims.

The notion of 19th-century paupers living in degradation was largely exaggerated for middle-class readers, according to “The Working Class at Home, 1790-1940.”