London: A Literary Companion

By Peter Vansittart

There is no city more talked about, or written about, than London. Each district, each landmark has literary associations hardly separable from the stones themselves. Some of them are well known, even hackneyed. Here you can see suburbia through the eyes of P.G. Wodehouse, or blitzed ruins through those of Rose Macaulay, or Hampstead society through Ezra Pound's. Max Beerbohm can introduce you to the goat that used to live in Piccadilly, and Victor Hugo to Charles II's watchman, whose job was to crow like a cock. You can look on as Shaw dances in Fitzroy Square with a chorus line of policemen, and G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc ride donkeys into the Ritz. Here you can see Dr Johnson perform a citizen's arrest, or Marx touch Engels for money. You can watch E.M. Forster help E. Nesbit set fire to models of suburban villas, and learn about Queen Victoria's liking for nudes.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0719552087
• ISBN13: 9780719552083
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Trafalgar Square Publishing
• Length: 311 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.