Literary London: A Street-by-Street Exploration of the Capital's Literary Heritage

by EdGlinert (Author)

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  Paperback
  2000

  $3.25

  From the Globe at Bankside to the Wimpole Street home of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, London is , and always has been, crammed with literary life. Playwrights, novelists, diarists, poets and essayists throughout the centuries have roamed its streets, met in its cafes and restaurants and strolled in its parks and gardens. They have been inspired by its monuments, churches, law courts and theatres and have created fictional Londoners as diverse as Mr Pickwick, Sherlock Holmes, Bertie Wooster, Mrs Dalloway and Winston Smith, whose fortunes are played out against a London backdrop. In this guide, the author gives a detailed survey of London, by area and by postcode, taking us street by street (and map by map) through all of the literary history that waits there. His is a book crammed full of fascinating facts (for example that Keats's Grecian urn was made in Staffordshire), of gossip, (who sent love notes to whom in the British Library) and of snippets concerning famous residents and workers (such as P.G. Wodehouse's disastrous time at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank). It lists local bookshops and their specialities and provides addresses that have appeared in novels by authors as disparate as Charles Dickens and Charles Dickens. There are also six themed walks to take around London including the Shakespeare walk and the Sherlock Holmes walk.