London: The Biography Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

London: The Biography Book

When the eminent novelist and biographer Peter Ackroyd finished writing London: The Biography, he almost immediately had a heart attack, such was the effort of his 800-page work about the "human body" that is this most fascinating of cities. And not just any human body either, but "envisaged in the form of a young man with his arms outstretched in a gesture of liberation... it embodies the energy and exaltation of a city continually beating in great waves of progress and of confidence." Probably there is no one better placed than Ackroyd--the author of mammoth lives of Dickens and Blake, and novels such as Hawksmoor and Dan Leno and the Lime House Golem which set singular characters against the backdrop of a city constantly shifting in time--to write such a rich, sinewy account of "Infinite London". Ackroyd's London is no mere chronology. Its chapters take on such varied themes as drinking, sex, childhood, poverty, crime and punishment, sewage, food, pestilence and fire, immigration, maps, theatre and war. We learn that gin was "the demon of London for half a century", and that "it has been estimated that in the 1740s and 1750s there were 17,000 'gin-houses'." Fleet Street was an area known for its "violent delights" where "a 14-year-old boy, only 18 inches high, was to be seen in 1702 at a grocer's shop called the Eagle and Child by Shoe Lane." By the mid 19th century "London had become known as the greatest city on earth." By 1939 "one in five of the British population had become a Londoner." Though London's chapters vary meaning that it can be dipped into at random, Ackroyd is employing a skilful and continuous theme throughout, which constantly links past and present--the similarities of children's games in Lambeth in 1910 and 1999; the obsession with time--"in 21st-century London time rushes forward and is everywhere apparent", while in 18th-century London the church clock of Newgate "regulated the times of hanging." Above all, he insists that the "dark secret life" of the metropolis is as relevant today as it was in perhaps its most appropriate period, Victorian London. Again and again Ackroyd returns to the image of London as a living organism, hence his use of the word "biography" in the title. At once awed by and intimate with this "ubiquitous" city, he stresses that "it can be located nowhere in particular... its circumference is everywhere." –-Catherine TaylorRead More

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  • Amazon

    Describes London from the time of the Druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century, noting magnificence in both epochs. This title includes chapters on the history of silence and the history of light, the history of childhood and the history of suicide, the history of Cockney speech and the history of drink.

  • Play

    Much of Peter Ackroyd's work has been concerned with the life and past of London but here as a culmination is his definitive account of the city. For him it is a living organism with its own laws of growth and change so "London" is a biography rather than a history. It differs from other histories too in the range and diversity of its contents. Ackroyd portrays London from the time of the Druids to the beginning of the 21st century noting magnificence in both epochs but this is not a simple chronological record. There are chapters on the history of silence and the history of light the history of childhood and the history of suicide the history of Cockney speech and the history of drink. It is in other words a comprehensive account animated by Ackroyd's concern for the close relationship between the present and the past as well as by what he describes as the peculiar 'echoic' quality of London whereby its texture and history actively affect the lives and personalities of its citizens. "London" is perhaps the most important study of the city ever written and confirms Ackroyd's status as a brilliant and original author.

  • BookDepository

    London : Paperback : Vintage Publishing : 9780099422587 : : 27 Nov 2001 : Describes London from the time of the Druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century, noting magnificence in both epochs. This title includes chapters on the history of silence and the history of light, the history of childhood and the history of suicide, the history of Cockney speech and the history of drink.

  • 0099422581
  • 9780099422587
  • Peter Ackroyd
  • 21 August 2001
  • Vintage
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 848
  • New edition
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