author
Augustus Mayhew
1826–1875
A lively Victorian journalist and author, he wrote sharp, comic, and observant books about everyday life in London. Much of his best-known work was created with his brother Henry Mayhew, pairing social detail with humor and popular appeal.
1 Audiobook
The Greatest Plague of Life: or, the Adventures of a Lady in Search of a Good Servant.
by Augustus Mayhew, Henry Mayhew
About the author
Born in London in 1826, Augustus Septimus Mayhew was an English journalist and author from the famously literary Mayhew family. He was the youngest son of Joshua Dorset Joseph Mayhew and the brother of writers Henry and Horace Mayhew.
He is best remembered for collaborative work with Henry Mayhew, including The Greatest Plague of Life; or, The Adventures of a Lady in Search of a Good Servant (1847), illustrated by George Cruikshank. He also worked on stage pieces with H. S. Edwards and wrote fiction and journalism that drew on the bustle, comedy, and hardships of Victorian city life.
Mayhew died on December 25, 1875. Although he is less widely known today than some of his relatives, his writing remains part of the rich world of nineteenth-century popular journalism and social observation.