and walk 18 miles per day in order to complete the first edition of the A to Z Gazetteer which we probably take for granted today. However Londoners and visitors had to wait until the 1930s for the fruit of the labours of Phyllis Pearsall, who would rise at 5 a.m. Mapping it began in the seventeenth century, and the Ordnance Survey completed its work in 1850 in some 847 sheets. Nevertheless, to consider that the history of silence is one of London's great secrets opens up new avenues of thought on an aspect which might seem paradoxical in the centre of what we have long assumed is the world's largest and busiest city. In spite of this, a few pages later we read that on Sundays and public holidays, silence returns throughout the old City – though it is debatable as to whether this is as true in these days of longer shopping and licensing hours than it was around forty years ago. It is hardly surprising to find out that London produced more noise than any other part of the country, and that from its earliest days it rang with the hammers of artisans and the cries of tradesmen. One moment he is examining how immigration has shaped it over the centuries and the consequences of various race riots, then he gives us an overview of crime, punishment prisons and murderers from Jack the Ripper to Dennis Nilsen, or how the authorities have treated the mentally ill – or 'the mad', as such people were mercilessly categorized in the days of the hospital at Bedlam.įrom time to time he delves into more abstract themes. The author examines various aspects of life which make up the capital, such as fairs and pleasure gardens, great plagues and fires, sanitation and sewage, and eating houses down the ages. I read it from start to finish, but it is the kind of volume which would lend itself equally to dipping into chapters at random.

Nevertheless, at over 600 pages of fairly close print in paperback, it is still a very full read.Īlthough the structure is chronological to a certain extent, it is not exactly a history of the city through the ages. Summary: An abridged, yet still substantial, version of Ackroyd's major 2000 'biography' of the capital, telling the story of how London evolved, in a series of thematic, almost chronological chapters.Īs is the case with his recent volume on Charles Dickens, Ackroyd's London is an abridged version of the full book originally published twelve years ago.

Peter ackroyds london