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This book is an anthology of extracts of literary writing (in prose, verse and drama) about London and its diverse inhabitants, taken from the accession of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558 to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. The 143 extracts, divided into four periods (1558-1659, 1660-1780, 1781-1870 and 1871-1914), range from about 250 words to 2,500. Each of the four periods has an introduction that deals with relevant social, geographical and historical developments, and each extract is introduced with a contextualizing headnote and furnished with explanatory footnotes. In addition, the general introduction to the anthology addresses some of the literary questions that arise in writing about London, and the book ends with many suggestions for further reading. It should appeal not only to the general reader interested in London and its representation, but also to students of literature in courses about ‘reading the city’ PART ONE. 1. John Lyly: London the Ideal City -- 2. Donald Lupton: London Bridge -- 3. Robert Herrick Laments Leaving his Native London -- 4. Herrick's Joyful Return to London -- 5. John Webster: The Decrepitude of Some London Buildings -- 6. John Donne: The Lively Streets of London -- 7. William Habington: In Praise of London in the Long Vacation -- 8. Philip Stubbes: Puritan Objections to Stage Plays -- 9. Shakespeare: "On your imaginary forces work" -- 10. Shakespeare: The best actors are but shadows -- 11. Thomas Nashe: "Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss" -- 12. Thomas Dekker: The Plague and its Victims in 1603 -- 13. Sir John Davies: "Our glorious English court's divine image" -- 14. Edmund Spenser: Another View of Love at Court -- 15. Anon: A Courtier -- 16. Thomas Dekker: "How a young gallant should behave himself in an ordinary" -- 17. John Earle: A Shopkeeper -- 18. Thomas Middleton: A Goldsmith Gulled -- 19. Barnabe Rich: Vanity Fair -- 20. Thomas Harman: An Abraham man -- 21. Robert Greene: Beware of Pickpockets -- 22. Middleton: Roaring Girls -- 23. Ben Jonson: Pickpockets at Bartholomew Fair -- 24. John Earle: A Prison -- 25. Donald Lupton: Bedlam -- 26. Dekker and Middleton: Entertainment Provided by the Inmates of Bedlam -- 27. Andrew Marvell: The Execution of Charles I -- 28. John Evelyn: "The funeral sermon of preaching" -- 29. Evelyn: Persecution of Royalist Churchgoers -- PART TWO. 1. Celia Fiennes: Some Topographical Features of London -- 2. Daniel Defoe: London Surging in Size -- 3. John Evelyn: Charles II's Triumphal Entry into London -- 4. Evelyn: Bodies of Cromwell and Others Exhumed -- 5. Evelyn: Gambling and Debauchery at the Court of Charles II -- 6. Evelyn: James II's Ill-Timed Feast for the Venetian Ambassadors -- 7. Samuel Pepys Describes the Plague -- 8. Daniel Defoe's Imaginative Reconstruction of the Great Plague -- 9. John Dryden: London on Fire -- 10. Pepys' Buried Treasure -- 11. Defoe: London Before and After the Fire -- 12. John Evelyn: Some Unusual Proceedings of the Royal Society -- 13. Ned Ward: The Rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral -- 14. Joseph Addison: The Royal Exchange -- 15. Ned Ward: Crowds at the Entrance to the Royal Exchange -- 16. Defoe: Westminster Abbey -- 17. Samuel Johnson in Praise of London -- 18. John Gay: The Labyrinthine Streets of London -- 19. Gay on Pall Mall -- 20. Jonathan Swift: "A Description of a City Shower" -- 21. Tobias Smollett: Ranelagh and Vauxhall Gardens -- 22. Hannah More: The Bluestocking Circle -- 23. Ned Ward: Pork Sellers at Bartholomew Fair -- 24. Benjamin Franklin: "Work, the Curse of the Drinking Classes" -- 25. John Gay: Perils of London by Night -- 26. James Smith: Sex-Workers in the Strand -- 27. Daniel Defoe on Shoplifting -- 28. Defoe: Newgate Prison -- 29. Samuel Richardson: An Execution at Tyburn -- 30. Samuel Johnson: The Crime of Poverty -- 31. Thomas Holcoft: The Gordon Riots -- PART THREE. 1. Charlotte Bronte: London as Life and Freedom -- 2. Mary Robinson: "London's Summer Morning" -- 3. Charles Dickens: A London "Pea-Souper" -- 4. William Cobbett: The Great Wen -- 5. William Wordsworth: Alienation and Anonymity -- 6. Alfred, Lord Tennyson: The Noise of Life Begins Again -- 7. William Blake: "Marks of Woe" -- 8. Charles Dickens: A Sunday in London -- 9. William Makepeace Thackeray: "Going to See a Man Hanged" -- 10. Thomas Hood: Let's All Go Down the Strand -- 11. John Ruskin recalls a childhood paradise at Herne Hill -- 12. William Wordsworth: "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept 2, 1802" -- 13. Matthew Arnold, "Lines Written in Kensington Gardens" -- 14. George Borrow on Cheapside -- 15. Frederick Locker-Lampson, "St James's Street", 1867 -- 16. Charles Dickens: Going Up the River -- 17. Nathaniel Hawthorne: a London Suburb -- 18. William Blake: St Paul's Cathedral on Holy Thursday -- 19. Thomas de Quincey: Tourists Must Pay to See the Sights of St Paul's Cathedral -- 20. Charles Dickets: The Building of a Railway -- 21. Henry Mayhew and George Cruikshank: The Great Exhibition and the Crystal Palace -- 22. John Ruskin: The Crystal Palace -- 23. Thomas De Quincey: The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Destroyed -- 24. Benjamin Disraeli: A View of Politicians -- 25. Anthony Trollope: Publicans and Sinners -- 26. Alfred, Lord Tennyson: "Ode Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition" (1862) -- 27. Charles Dickens: A London Hackney-Coach -- 28. Charles Lamb: "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple" -- 29. Wilkie Collins: A Child's Sunday in London -- 30. Elizabeth Gaskell: Haste to the Wedding -- 31. Charles Dickens: Dinner in Harley Street -- 32. Charles Dickens: Bran-New People -- 33. William Thackeray: Wars and Rumours of Wars -- 34. Robert Smith Surtees, Sponge in the City -- 35. Herman Melville: The Temple -- 36. William Makepeace Thackeray: "Great City Snobs" -- 37. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Writing Woman -- 38. Leigh Hunt: A London Waiter -- 39. Henry Mayhew: Covent Garden Market -- 40. Charles Dickens: Bleeding Heart Yard -- 41. Charles Kingsley: The Making of a Chartist -- 42. William Morris: "Prologue: The Wanderers" -- 43. Henry Mayhew: "The Narrative of a Gay Woman" -- 44. Thomas De Quincey: "Preliminary Confessions" -- 45. Dante Gabriel Rossetti: "Jenny" -- 46. Christina Rossetti: "In an Artist's Studio" -- 47. Thomas Hardy: "The Ruined Maid" -- PART FOUR. 1. Thomas Hardy: "Snow in the Suburbs" -- 2. Henry James: A Saturday Evening Stroll -- 3. Lionel Johnson: "By the Statue of King Charles at Charing Cross -- 4. George Moore: A Train Journey -- 5. Emily Constance Cook: The Respectable Grime of Ages -- 6. Henry James: The Appeal of the Great City -- 7. Oscar Wilde, "Impression du Matin" -- 8. H G Wells: An evening in Hyde Park -- 9. Robert Bridges, "London Snow" -- 10. Oscar Wilde: "London Models" -- 11. Vernon Lee: the mazes of aesthetic London -- 12. George Moore: Bohemian Life in Mayfair -- 13. George Gissing: A Struggling Writer -- 14. William S. Gilbert: The House of Peers -- 15. Anthony Trollope: The House of Commons -- 16. George Gissing: The Crystal Palace Park -- 17. Arnold Bennett: A London Bank -- 18. C W Murphy: "I live in Trafalgar Square" -- 19. Henry James: A Steamer down the Thames -- 20. Joseph Conrad: Sunset on the Thames -- 21. George Eliot: A House by the Thames -- 22. Margaret Oliphant: The Painter and the Philistine -- 23. George Gissing: The Women's Movement -- 24. Mary Augusta Ward: A Politician and his Wife -- 25. Lady St Helier: Politics and the Music-Hall -- 26. George and Weedon Grossmith: Nobody is Invited to a Ball -- 27. George Gissing: Supreme Ugliness in the Caledonian Road -- 28. Joseph Conrad: Bombs and Pornography -- 29. Israel Zangwill: A Child of Ghetto -- 30. D H Lawrence: Outcasts of Waterloo Bridge -- 31. Amy Levy: "Ballade of an Omnibus" -- 32. Arthur Morrison: A Slum -- 33. Baroness Emmuska Orczy: Death on the Tube -- 34. Virginia Woolf: Leaving London -- 35. Richard Jeffries: Drowned London -- 36. Beatrix Potter: Town Mouse and Country Mouse
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