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An Irving Penn series commissioned once by Withers similarly portrays men and women holding traditional blue-collar jobs: a chimney sweep, a cobbler, a fishmonger and what was then known as a rag-and-bone man, a sack slung over his shoulder.

Death could tug readers’ heartstrings, drive serial sales or lend credence to controversial scientific theories, as with the spontaneous combustion of the rag-and-bone man Mr. Krook in “Bleak House,” an impossible conversion of matter into ooze that Dickens lustily defended.

Exploring alternatives, he moves even further back on the historical scale, trying his luck as a rag-and-bone man.

Job possibilities seemed more varied and exciting: my boyfriend dropped out of school, became a rag-and-bone man, and found us a stall on the Portobello Road, where I sold tailors’ trimmings – a heavenly relief after a week teaching music in Tower Hamlets.

Hip-hop’s rag-and-bone man took the stage and let fly with his eroticized paen to second-hand shopping, the massive hit “Thrift Shop” — and the crowd went ballistic.