ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book highlights how the river sewage pollution dilemma played out, in practice, for a number of individual towns so affected. The river pollution dilemma was a seemingly intractable problem involving towns and civil courts in England during the nineteenth century. The analytical method used to explore the dilemma is to examine the history and context of a number of Victorian-era civil disputes over river pollution where nuisance suits were brought. Two instances of river pollution nuisance cases which, while not directly sewage-related, further illustrate the ways that disputes under nuisance law can end. In any case the nature of the problem is such that out-of-court settlement of disputes is possible, before any formal court record is made, so a full list of these nuisance disputes is not only unavailable but could never be assembled.
