This one is very unfairly ignored all too often. The details may have changed since then (not too much, though), but everything is spot on. I remember reading this living between jobs on a couple of quid a day in a hostel and thinking that the similarities really were uncanny. Except for the work houses, luckily this bit is gone from Western Europe.
What really struck me was how plain it was that laws and rules that are supposed to apply equally to everyone often have in-built repressive aspects, like the fact that you could get fined and jailed for sleeping rough. This is wonderfully summarised by a quote that I found only later: “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
So yes, Down and out is a must read, just as much as Animal farm and 1984.
What really struck me was how plain it was that laws and rules that are supposed to apply equally to everyone often have in-built repressive aspects, like the fact that you could get fined and jailed for sleeping rough. This is wonderfully summarised by a quote that I found only later: “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
So yes, Down and out is a must read, just as much as Animal farm and 1984.