“There’s plenty of marvelous information in the book about what lies beneath London. . . . Ackroyd mines historical anecdotes to great effect. . . . He is not just interested in London’s hidden relics; he’s interested in what they—and the idea of an underground—mean to a culture. London’s underworld is a ‘shadow or replica of the city,’ and it is also a shadow of ourselves and our thoughts, the stuff that’s discovered when we open the trapdoor.” —The Daily Beast
"Eloquent and visceral." —Kirkus Reviews
Praise for *London: The Biography*
“Magnificent. . . . Succeeds in animating on the page the life of one of the oldest and greatest . . . cities in the world.” —The New York Times Book Review
“A wonderful book, a treasure of information and anecdote ... a book to be taken up again and again for the pleasures that lie within.” —The Chicago Tribune
“Ackroyd writes in a wonderfully graphic style that carries the reader through historical byways effortlessly.” —The Denver Post
“A tour de force by a writer of immense skill. . . . A treasure of information and anecdote about one of the world’s great cities, a book to be taken up again and again for the pleasures that lie within.” —The Seattle Times
“Packed with strange delights and bizarre occurrences. . . . Ackroyd is a writer of memorable, eccentrically rhythmic sentences that one wants to quote at length.” —Newsday
About the Author
PETER ACKROYD is the author of London: The Biography, Shakespeare: The Biography, Thames: The Biography, and Venice: Pure City; acclaimed biographies of T. S. Eliot, Dickens, Blake, and Sir Thomas More; and several successful novels. He has won the Whitbread Book Award for Biography, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Somerset Maugham Award, among others.
Description:
Review
“There’s plenty of marvelous information in the book about what lies beneath London. . . . Ackroyd mines historical anecdotes to great effect. . . . He is not just interested in London’s hidden relics; he’s interested in what they—and the idea of an underground—mean to a culture. London’s underworld is a ‘shadow or replica of the city,’ and it is also a shadow of ourselves and our thoughts, the stuff that’s discovered when we open the trapdoor.”
—The Daily Beast
"Eloquent and visceral."
—Kirkus Reviews
Praise for *London: The Biography*
“Magnificent. . . . Succeeds in animating on the page the life of one of the oldest and greatest . . . cities in the world.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“A wonderful book, a treasure of information and anecdote ... a book to be taken up again and again for the pleasures that lie within.”
—The Chicago Tribune
“Ackroyd writes in a wonderfully graphic style that carries the reader through historical byways effortlessly.”
—The Denver Post
“A tour de force by a writer of immense skill. . . . A treasure of information and anecdote about one of the world’s great cities, a book to be taken up again and again for the pleasures that lie within.”
—The Seattle Times
“Packed with strange delights and bizarre occurrences. . . . Ackroyd is a writer of memorable, eccentrically rhythmic sentences that one wants to quote at length.”
—Newsday
About the Author
PETER ACKROYD is the author of London: The Biography, Shakespeare: The Biography, Thames: The Biography, and Venice: Pure City; acclaimed biographies of T. S. Eliot, Dickens, Blake, and Sir Thomas More; and several successful novels. He has won the Whitbread Book Award for Biography, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Somerset Maugham Award, among others.