Mansions of misery: a biography of the Marshalsea debtors' prison

A micro-history of London in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - the story of the capital's notorious debtors'prison, immortalised by Charles Dickens.

For Londoners debt was part of everyday life. The poor depended on credit from shopkeepers and landlords to survive, but the rich too were often deep in debt to finance their luxurious lifestyle.

When creditors lost their patience both rich and poor would be thrown into one the capital's debtors'prisons where they could linger for years.

The most notorious of them was the Marshalsea. In the eighteenth century, the prison became a byword for misery; in the words of one of its inmates, it was 'hell in epitome'.

But the Marshalsea was also a microcosm of London life, and whereas its poorest inmates lived in fear of starvation, the wealthy carried on as they would in the outside world, employing servants and entertaining guests.