Norton Book of London (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780393036312)

London has always been much more than a capital city. Its allure is so powerful that the city of monarchs and merchants once prompted Samuel Johnson to declare, When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. From the Great Fire of 1666 to the Blitz of World War II, from the building of the Tower of London to the building of Canary Wharf, this prodigious city has long stood at the heart of English national life. At one time the center of the greatest mercantile empire the world has ever known, today London remains one of the major financial hubs of the world, as well as one of the most interesting tourist destinations in the English-speaking world. In this fascinating trip through time and space, celebrated biographer and novelist A. N. Wilson gathers a collection of literature that reflects not merely a sense of place but also the teeming variety of the town that, in its very refusal to be defined, so consistently captures the world's interest. The Norton Book of London views the city through the eyes of writers as various as Dickens and Joe Orton, Dostoyevsky and Lenin, Boswell and Martin Amis. We see criminal London, low life and high life, beggars and politicians, royal families, intellectuals and animals, in a wonderful portrait that celebrates London both past and present. From Black Beauty to Virginia Woolf, Wilson has scoured the shelves for a rich potpourri of the familiar, the diverting, and the strange.

Author: A. N. Wilson
ISBN-10: 0393036316
ISBN-13: 9780393036312
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 03/01/1995
Pages: 484
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.72lbs
Size: 9.27h x 5.92w x 1.25d

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 01/15/1995 pg. 892
Library Journal 12/01/1994 pg. 117
Publishers Weekly 10/24/1994 pg. 50