Abstract

the london journal, Vol. 47 No. 2, July 2022, 234–235 Book Review By JULIA LAITE. Pp. xiv + 410 + 26 illustrations. London: Profile Books, 2021. £16.99. ISBN 978-1-7881-6442-9. Hardback. For anyone interested in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century British history, the ‘white slavery panic’ is a familiar topic. W.T. Stead’s oft-quoted ‘The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’ series, published in 1885, lifted the lid on London’s unregulated sex indus- try. It also cemented persistent cultural narratives that cast sex workers as either young, ‘innocent’ victims or irredeemable fallen women. Julia Laite’s latest book, The Disappear- ance of Lydia Harvey, painstakingly reconstructs the life of one young woman who became a victim of the international human trafficking networks that operated in Edwardian London. It traces the involvement of a range of individuals in an otherwise forgotten case. In 1910, the teenager Lydia Harvey travelled from New Zealand to Buenos Aires in the company of a woman Lydia knew as ‘Marie’, on the promise of work, money and a better standard of living. Marie’s husband Antonio Carvelli met them in Argentina, and the couple quickly coerced Lydia to work as a prostitute. After a few unsuccessful months in South America, the