Ginx's Baby: His Birth and Other Misfortunes; a Satire

This savage 1870 satire caused a scandal upon publication, and its ferocity has lost none of its bite. When Ginx, a navvy living in the slums of Westminster, learns his wife has given birth to their thirteenth child into already desperate poverty, he makes a horrifying proposition to the local authorities: will they take the baby off his hands? What follows is a relentless expose of Victorian hypocrisy, as priests, politicians, philanthropists, and moralists descend upon the Ginx family, each eager to claim the infant for their own purposes. No one actually wants to help the family survive, but everyone wants to control the baby. Jenkins, writing with furious precision, dismantles the moral pretensions of the ruling class while refusing to sentimentalize the poor. This is uncomfortable, necessary reading that exposes society's brutal indifference to working-class suffering.