Why a Booktrail?
Visit the best literary landmarks in London, revealing the stories behind the stories.
Literary London
What you need to know before your trail
Literary London is as the name suggests pays homage to London and its many literary sights and secrets. With maps, snippets of books, novels to immerse you in to each place, each time, each period, you can move around the city in a number of ways
From Chaucer, to Shakespeare, to the Great Fire to a certain little marmalade loving bear…there’s a lot to sink your literary teeth into.
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
Literary London (Sam’s top picks)
Chaucer’s London – Borough High Street – A pub which was once located here was the starting point for the Pilgrims.
Shakespeare’s London – George Inn – This is a good example of an authentic 17th-century coaching inn and pub with oak beams just like in Shakespeare’s time.
The Globe Inn – Essential for all Shakespeare pilgrims
Old British Library Building – place Marx wrote Das Kapital – and hundreds of other writers worked.
Ye Old Cheshire Cheese – the favourite pub of Dickens (appears in A Tale Of Two Cities)
Pepys London – Take a look at St Dunstan’s Church and wonder what Pepys got up to in here!
Virginia Woolf’s London – She lived on Gordon Square. This area is a well known hunting ground as the The Bloomsbury set lived and loved here. This is also where so many members of the Bloomsbury set worked, played, lived, loved and staggered home drunk.
Arthur Ransom’s Soho – The author of Swallows and Amazons -He used to enjoy walking along this street and eating bananas from the stalls
London – Christ Church – Part of the churches which form a pattern not unlike the Pleaides stars according to Peter Ackcroyd – his seventh church Little St Hugh is fictional
Paddington Bear – Of course he was found in Paddington Station and visited Fortnum and Mason although it sells marmelade, sadly there is no department dedicated to it.
Historical London is also woven into the booktrails of the great writers and their novels – Going back to the Great fire of London is an interesting part of the book – Visit the Monument dedicated to it, close to Pudding Lane where the fire first started.
Trail Gallery
Booktrailer Review
Susan @thebooktrailer
Where do I start? This is just the perfect book for any literary lover –
The chapters start by telling you about the journey London has gone on from its humble beginnings to the metropolis of today. It was like stepping back in a time machine and finding your way with the authors in turn, the guides of the social, political, cultural and of course Literary London of its time.
Can you tell how much this book fascinated me? It’s even got key addresses and further reading lists after each easy to read and descriptive chapters. Such bold titles too ‘Beginners and Immortals” was the first – Chaucer, Shakespeare….so often I think we forget about the faded footsteps of those who have walked centuries before us.
Little grey boxes of extra info peppered the journey like those blue literary plaques on the walls…. You can literally walk in and out of this book as the mood suits and of course each chapter is a trail in itself – and a mountain of knowledge at the same time.
The text is fresh and witty and then when I got to chapter four “Mystics and Magicians” like on a wayward Hogwarts broom, I was flung into the London ether – graveyards, angels and demons…. ghosts. I may not be brave enough to read in the dark but if you do I can only imagine sitting in some of these places when the light starts to fade. Never mind the Jack the Ripper tours – this is a whole new London thrill!
There’s so much to this book that one short review doesn’t even get close to the literary love affair I now have with London and this book. Gossips and Rivals was another favourite “London has nurtured many fond literary friendships” it starts describing the way writers huddle in cafes….and where readers go to ‘meet’ them either for real or via their books
It’s not just the literary leanings which are prominent but the landscape and the changes that the city has seen and experienced and even those it has been at the forefront of. A history lesson as well as a literary one but one that reads like a ride on that Hogwarts broom stick when your game of Quidditch is polished and ready,A literary gem
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Literary London
Author/Guide: Sam Jordison Destination: London Departure Time: Various
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