The Memoirs of Lizzie Adams

In seeking to bring back to life the streets of Carlisle from a bygone era, The Memoirs of Elizabeth, ‘Lizzie’ Adams combines both fact and fiction to follow the life and times of a Victorian Carlisle Prostitute.

Lizzie Adams of Globe Lane Carlisle, in the county of Cumberland, being a fictitional character whom the author has created to give a voice to a certain class of all but anonymous women who would appear to have left no other records of themselves. Or did they?
Lizzie Adams’ family and many of the characters, circumstances and events surrounding her life are collated from a number of factual sources such as local census information; a selection of reports which were made about the social conditions of the time, both local to Carlisle and to the county in general. Periodicals of the era such as The Carlisle Patriot, The Carlisle Journal and The Times are used here, together with compilations by Victorian reporters, writers, philanthropists and those in the prostitution trade – themselves. They are all signified in notes by the author.