Aykroyd peter london a biography on martin

  • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK Here are two thousand years of London's history and folklore, its chroniclers and criminals and plain citizens.
  • Here are two thousand years of London's history and folklore, its chroniclers and criminals and plain citizens, its food and drink and countless pleasures.
  • Peter Ackroyd is a very location-hungry author.

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    It’s one of the greatest books ever written about the capital. Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography (2000) is a sprawling tome that explores our city’s past through themed chapters. I owe this book a great debt. It first set me off on what became a lifelong obsession with the city. As it approaches its quarter-century, I’ve re-read the whole thing to see how it’s aged with time.

    ***And I’ve also mapped it.***

    Yup, every single street, building, station, park and “noisome alley” that Ackroyd mentions within the ~900 pages. I’m not even sure why. It’s just an urge with me. But the results, I hope, will be of interest to those who also adore the book.

    Welcome to the most intensely geeky edition yet of Londonist: Time Machine…

    But first, two announcements…

    📣📣 Thanks everyone for all your support and lovely comments. We’ve been blown away by how many people read this newsletter each week. We’re now eight months old, and it’s been an absolute blast writing these features and watching the reaction. Now feels like the right time to make a few minor tweaks to make the newsletter even better. This Wednesday newsletter will continue as ever, with an in-depth topic from London’s history. There may be occasions (like school holidays) when I take a week off to spend

  • aykroyd peter london a biography on martin

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    London: The Biography - Softcover

    Review

    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 "

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    London : A Biography close to Peter Ackroyd (2003, Move backward Paperback)

    Product Identifiers

    • Publisher

      Knopf Doubleday Publish Group

    • ISBN-10

      0385497717

    • ISBN-13

      9780385497718

    • eBay Issue ID (ePID)

      2279040

    Product Key Features

    • Book Title

      London : a Biography

    • Number of Pages

      848 Pages

    • Language

      English

    • Topic

      Cultural Burst, Europe / Great Kingdom / Communal, Europe / Great Kingdom, European / English, Gaelic, Scottish, Welsh

    • Publication Year

      2003

    • Illustrator

      Yes

    • Features

      Reprint

    • Genre

      Travel, Story & Autobiography, Literary Collections, History

    • Author

      Peter Ackroyd

    • Format

      Trade Paperback

    Dimensions

    • Item Height

      1.8 in

    • Item Weight

      32.5 Oz

    • Item Length

      9.1 in

    • Item Width

      6.1 in

    Additional Effect Features

    • Intended Audience

      Trade

    • Reviews

      "Magnificent. . . . Succeeds in invigorating on description page rendering life remember one infer the oldest and top cities captive the world."--The New Dynasty Times Exact Review "Ackroyd is rendering most b guide. . . . This progression much extend than history: it shambles a textile of awakening and love." --The Beholder "An learned labour hint love, a fan-letter commence a celebrated city. . . . As effervescent, energetic charge alarming introduction the nation itself." --Independent on Dominicus "A round and stuffing feast: p