FA: THE OXFORD BOOK OF LONDON

THE OXFORD BOOK OF LONDON
Bailey, Paul (editor): THE OXFORD BOOK OF LONDON

New York: Oxford Univ Press, 1995. First edition.



Book Description

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 London's allure for visitors and
inhabitants--from the Middle Ages to the present day--with wit, humor, 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
fogbound London streets, the bustle and hustle of the Victorian city; Ben
Jonson's satires on London low life from 1616; William Wordsworth
rhapsodizing on the view from Westminster Bridge; George Bernard Shaw's
archetypal Cockney, Eliza Doolittle. Less well known but equally vivid are
descriptions of everyday life for the down and out and the aristocrat, of
the museums, theaters, galleries and churches, the restaurants and pubs, the
parks and institutions, the topography of London mapped out in unforgettable
verse and prose. The great set pieces, Daniel Defoe's description of the
Plague year, John Evelyn's and Samuel Pepys's daily records of the Great
Fire, join eyewitness accounts of coronations and funerals, unequaled in
their immediacy. The bemusement of foreign visitors, the joys and horrors of
London buses and the London Underground, the sprawl of the suburbs and the
excitement of the city, all add to the dazzling panorama.



Beginning in 1180 or thereabouts, with a monk named William Fitzstephen
enumerating the delights of the capital, and ending in the present day, The
Oxford Book of London offers an unparalleled introduction and tribute to
this fascinating city. Armchair travellers, anyone planning to visit London,
and those interested in fine writing will gain a sense of the ways in which
the city has grown and changed over eight centuries.



Fine with Fine jacket.


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