Trying to imagine the preindustrial past might conjure the image of an idyllic country village with pristine air and residents merrily dancing around maypoles. The healthy, peaceful, and prosperous people in this fantasy of pastoral bliss do not realize that their contented, leisurely lives will soon be disrupted by the story's villain: the dark smokestacks of the Industrial Revolution, what the poet William Blake called "satanic mills." Yet such rose-colored views of history bear no resemblance to reality.

The preindustrial world was far more gruesome than modern minds can fathom-marked by unthinkable poverty, drudgery, cruelty, and pain. From child abuse and famine-induced cannibalism to bloodletting and streets that doubled as open sewers, ordinary existence was fraught with horrors. The Grim Old Days indulges the reader's morbid curiosity about everyday history with firsthand accounts and shocking facts, meticulously researched and laid out in grotesque detail. The book strips away romantic illusions to confront the harsh reality of preindustrial life-one that most people today would not wish upon their worst enemies.