London: The Biography

It would be out of place here to list the literature of London, simply because to a large extent it also represents the literature of England; few novelists, poets or dramatists have not been touched or moved by London. I might also name Chaucer, Shakespeare, Pope, Dryden, Johnson and the myriad other writers who comprise a distinct and distinctive London world. That is the matter for another book. All I can do here is list specific debts and allegiances, especially to those writers and books which emerge in the course of my narrative. I feel of course an obligation to T.S. Eliot, Thomas More, William Blake and Charles Dickens who have helped to fashion my vision of London; to Thomas De Quincey, Charles Lamb, George Gissing, Arthur Machen, and the other urban pilgrims, I owe an especial debt. I have alluded in this biography particularly to Virginia Woolf, Henry James, Aldous Huxley, Joseph Conrad, George Orwell, H.G. Wells and G.K. Chesterton; from other centuries, the urban works of Tobias Smollett, Daniel Defoe, Ben Jonson and Henry Fielding have been a perpetual comfort and reward. Specific references are made to Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners (London, 1955), Michael Moorcock’s Mother London (London, 1988), Iain Sinclair’s Downriver (London, 1991), Arthur Morrison’s A Child of the Jago (London, 1896) and Elizabeth Bowen’s The Heat of the Day (London, 1949). Certain literary studies have also been immensely helpful. There are many general works, such as W. Kent’s London for the Literary Pilgrim (London, 1949), Andrew Davies’s Literary London (London, 1988), W.B. Thresshing’s The London Muse (Georgia, 1982) and The Book Lover’s London by A. St. John Adcock (London, 1913). Of more specific import are Henry James and London by J. Kimmey (New York, 1991) and Virginia Woolf’s London by D. Brewster (London, 1959). London Transformed by M. Byrd deals primarily with the literary territory of the eighteenth century. I owe an especial debt to J. Wolfreys’s Writing London (London, 1998), particularly for his perceptive remarks on Carlyle and Engels.

The early history of London is marked by speculation and controversy. Much of it is veiled in myth or legend, and the enchantment can be glimpsed in Legendary London: Early London in Tradition and History by L. Spence (London, 1937) and Prehistoric London: Its Mounds and Circles by E.O. Gordon (London, 1914). The Holy Groves of Britain by F.J. Stuckey (London, 1995) is also of absorbing interest. A more sober account is provided by N. Merriman in Prehistoric London (London, 1990) which is complemented by F.G. Parsons’s The Earlier Inhabitants of London (London, 1927). The great antiquarian and scholar, Laurence Gomme, a true successor of John Stow, has written The Governance of London (London, 1907) and The Making of London (London, 1912) as well as The Topography of London (London, 1904). For the deeper background I recommend Celtic Britain by C. Thomas (London, 1986) and The Druids by S. Piggott (London, 1968). For the city of later date, London: City of the Romans by R. Merrifield (London, 1983) is essential reading together with a shorter study by R. Merrifield and J. Hally entitled Roman London (London, 1986); a more speculative account can be found in The London That Was Rome by M. Harrison (London, 1971). Then, later still, The Anglo-Saxons edited by J. Campbell (London, 1982) is the best general account. The essays and articles in The Journal of the London Society are of great importance in the study of early London, but the major source of archaeological information remains The London Archaeologist. The articles and site reports in that periodical are invaluable.