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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 Taylor
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0099422581
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Book Description Condition: New. 2001. Reprint. Paperback. 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. Num Pages: 848 pages, illustrations. BIC Classification: 1DBKESL; HBJD1; HBTB; JFSG. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 234 x 154 x 54. Weight in Grams: 1072. . . . . . Seller Inventory # V9780099422587
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A masterpiece- London- A Biography is the culmination and distillation of Peter Ackroyd's lifelong obsession with the history and topography of London. Vividly anecdotal and brilliantly original.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 twenty-first 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.London is perhaps the most important study of the city ever written, and confirms Ackroyd's status as what one critic has called 'our age's greatest London imagination.' 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. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780099422587
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 848 pages. 9.21x6.02x1.93 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0099422581