London: The Biography [Paperback]

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 "a 14-year-old boy, only 18 inches high, was to be seen in 1702 at a grocer's shop called the Eagle and Child by Shoe Lane." By the mid 19th century "London had become known as the greatest city on earth." By 1939 "one in five of the British population had become a Londoner."

Though London's chapters vary meaning that it can be dipped into at random, Ackroyd is employing a skilful and continuous theme throughout, which constantly links past and present--the similarities of children's games in Lambeth in 1910 and 1999; the obsession with time--"in 21st-century London time rushes forward and is everywhere apparent", while in 18th-century London the church clock of Newgate "regulated the times of hanging." Above all, he insists that the "dark secret life" of the metropolis is as relevant today as it was in perhaps its most appropriate period, Victorian London.

Again and again Ackroyd returns to the image of London as a living organism, hence his use of the word "biography" in the title. At once awed by and intimate with this "ubiquitous" city, he stresses that "it can be located nowhere in particular... its circumference is everywhere." –-Catherine Taylor

`It's this decade's finest work of non-fiction' --The Word

"cleverly weaves through centuries of history to reveal to us the hundreds of different cities within a city"
--The Times

`The definitive history of London... a must read for anyone interested in the subject' --Express

A masterpiece: London: A Biography is the culmination and distillation of Peter Ackroyd's lifelong obsession with the history and topography of London. Vividly anecdotal and brilliantly original.

Much of Peter Ackroyd's work has been concerned with the life and past of London but here, as a culmination, is his definitive account of the city. For him it is a living organism, with its own laws of growth and change, so London is a biography rather than a history. It differs from other histories, too, in the range and diversity of its contents. Ackroyd portrays London from the time of the Druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century, noting magnificence in both epochs, but this is not a simple chronological record. There are chapters on the history of silence and the history of light, the history of childhood and the history of suicide, the history of Cockney speech and the history of drink. London is perhaps the most important study of the city ever written, and confirms Ackroyd's status as what one critic has called 'our age's greatest London imagination.'

A masterpiece
‘Peter Ackroyd was born to write the biography of London…a brilliant book’ Sunday Telegraph

‘It would be no exaggeration to say that Peter Ackroyd’s ‘biography’ of our capital is the book about London. It contains a lifetime of reading and research…but this huge book is light and airy and playful…[He] leads us on a journey both historical and geographical, but also imaginative. Every street, alley and courtyard has a story, and Ackroyd brings it to life for us…Marvellous’ A N Wilson, Daily Mail

‘Nothing can quite match the huge strange echo chamber of life-stories, folktales, and urban myths conjured up in Peter Ackroyd’s epic vision of his native city. Sparkling, witty scholarship is constantly transformed into smoky mystical street-history, with dark hypnotic meditations on fog, fire, sewage, suicide and civic resurrection’ Richard Holmes, Books of the Year, Daily Telegraph

‘Ackroyd is the most effortless guide. You wander by his side through the streets of the old city, savouring its bustle, colours and its smells, the stink of living. This is much more than history; it is a tapestry of inspiration and love. You will not find a better, more visionary book about a place we take for granted’ Observer

‘His masterwork…A rich torrent of remarkable lists, bizarre anecdotage, stink, press and clatter, the gestures of the street, the violence and the cruelty, the beauty and the energy of this greatest and most horrible of cities. It is just fantastic’ Andrew Marr, Books of the Year, Daily Telegraph

‘This magnificent evocation of all that London has meant down the centuries…I cannot begin to describe the richness with which Ackroyd pursues his theme…A blend of virtuosity and deep affection that is truly bewitching. Ackroyd has performed a noble public service in preserving in these pages so many centuries of marvels, horrors and secrecies’ Jan Morris, Mail on Sunday

‘Magisterial…a gargantuan feat of scholarship…With each chapter the life of the city becomes ever more intense, pulsating and persisting through the ages’ Scotland on Sunday

‘Ackroyd’s superbly crafted, learned, intelligent London is the best monument the world’s capital could have. It is absolutely wonderful’ John Simpson, Books of the Year, Daily Telegraph

‘London is an astonishing achievement…a remarkable reading experience’ Daily Telegraph

‘Invariably exciting and immensely enjoyable…Ackroyd coruscates with ideas and fancies…the total effect is spectacular and vastly stimulating. "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." The same could be said with equal justice of any reader who finds no pleasure or instruction in Ackroyd’s book’ Spectator

‘Mammoth…beguiling…intriguing…vivid…engrossing’ Scotsman

‘Truly, he has written London’s biography. I began rereading it as soon as I finished, and I urge you to read it as soon as possible, so that you can begin rereading it as well’ Will Self, New Statesman

‘A fat and filling feast: pretty much everything of interest about the capital is crammed into the eight-hundred pages. One cannot but marvel at Ackroyd’s erudition, his energy in marshalling minutiae, his ear for quotation, his flair for dazzling juxtapositions, his vibrant imagination and sheer exuberance’ The Times

‘An erudite labour of love, a fan-letter to a fabulous city, and a book one suspects Ackroyd was destined to write. It illuminates the English character, and is darkly humorous in its detail, tumbling through centuries crowded with legendary events and eccentric observations, as exuberant, energetic and alarming as the city itself’ Independent on Sunday

‘A masterpiece’ Evening Standard

‘Spellbinding’ Express on Sunday

‘A sharp, beautifully written but above all truthful account of London…This is the kind of writing that gives intellectuals a good name’ Sunday Tribune

‘A rich dish, this is Ackroyd’s masterwork, a definitive tale of the city’ Condé Nast Traveller

‘Awe-inspiring’ Big Issue

Peter Ackroyd is a best-selling writer of both fiction and non fiction. He has won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Royal Society of Literature's William Heinemann Award (joint), the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Guardian fiction prize. He lives in north London. (20010730)