The Oxford book of London

Paul Bailey

"All great cities inspire great literature but no other city has so consistently stimulated the literary imagination as London. Over the centuries writers, poets, historians, artists, and simple observers have chronicled the life and growth of the capital from its humble beginnings to the teeming metropolis it is today. In his sparkling anthology Paul Bailey has captured the essence of its allure for visitors and inhabitants from the Middle Ages to the present day with wit, humour, and pathos." "Among the many contributors are those whose evocations of the city have forever fixed it in the popular mind: Charles Dickens's descriptions of fog-bound London streets, the bustle and hustle of the Victorian city; Ben Jonson's satires on London low-life; William Wordsworth rhapsodizing on the view from Westminster Bridge; George Bernard Shaw's archetypal cockney, Eliza Doolittle...Less well...

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