It’s easy to see a lot of Ankh-Morpork in the streets of Victorian London, but this story is far from the tales of Discworld. I found it very slow and didn’t find Pratchett’s rendition of Charles Dickens or Dodger that engaging. However, as always, there are some wonderful observations hidden away in what is otherwise a fragrant adventure in the sewers of London. I think overall, it would suit a younger audience.

Pratchett makes many connections between Dodger and those whose professions are considered above the board. Politicians and journalists as just as much “on the dodge” at times. The idea of making a living searching poo for a few coins being better than life as a chimney sweep or even the workhouses, really hits home the awful poverty of city life in Victorian times.

I found the most interesting aspects were the real people, however dramatized they might be. Such as Angela, heir to the Coutts fortune yet unmarried and doing her bit to help the poor help themselves. Such a very modern woman for the times. There was also Henry Mayhew who went on to write an eye-opening study of the poor in London, Benjamin Disraeli, who would become Britain’s only Jewish prime minister and Sir Robert Peel, head of the new brand of policemen. Joseph Bazalgette, the engineer who would one day improve the sewers of London, gets his first taste of the bowels of the city when Dodger takes him toshing.

There were also some characters borrowed from literature or, if you like, urban legend such as Sweeney Todd. Dodger himself isn’t exactly the Artful Dodger, but I get the idea he is perhaps meant to be the inspiration for Dickens’s character. And, of course, Charlie Dickens has quite a large role in the story too.