London in fiction

Updated on Dec 07, 2024

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Many notable works of fiction are set in London, the capital city of England.

Folklore

Arthurian legends

Robin Hood

Dick Whittington and His Cat

Early fiction

Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales (late 14th century)

Daniel Defoe - A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), Moll Flanders (1722)

Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels (1726)

19th century fiction

Many of Charles Dickens's most famous novels are at least partially set in London, including Oliver Twist (1838), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1850), Bleak House (1853), Little Dorrit (1857), A Tale Of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1861), Our Mutual Friend (1865), and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870).

William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (1847)

Jules Verne - Around the World in Eighty Days (French: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) (1872)

Robert Louis Stevenson - New Arabian Nights (1882), The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)

Henry James - The Princess Casamassima (1886), A London Life (1888), What Maisie Knew (1897), In the Cage (1898)

Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)

H. G. Wells - The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898)

Arthur Morrison - A Child of the Jago (1896)

Somerset Maugham - Liza of Lambeth (1897)

Bram Stoker's - Dracula (1897) comes to London in order to seduce Mina Harker.

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Holmes live at 221B Baker Street - a fictional address since Baker Street was much shorter in Victorian times. The Docklands area plays a large part in The Sign of Four.

George Gissing's novels are almost exclusively set in London, including The Nether World (1889), New Grub Street (1891) and The Odd Women (1893).

Irishman George Moore also wrote an "English" novel mainly set in London, Esther Waters (1894).

20th century fiction

Chesterton's allegorical works The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) and The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) both feature surreal depictions of London.

Joseph Conrad - The Secret Agent (1907)

J M Barrie - Peter and Wendy (1904 - 1911)

Marie Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger (1913)

D. H. Lawrence - Sons and Lovers (1913)

P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster novels (1919 onwards). Wooster lives mainly in London, and is a member of the Drones Club.

Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway (1925)

T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) makes frequent reference to the Unreal City.

Evelyn Waugh - Vile Bodies (1930)

Aldous Huxley - Brave New World (1932)

Patrick Hamilton - 20,000 Streets Under The Sky (1935)

George Orwell - Keep The Aspidistra Flying (1936)

Cameron McCabe - The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor (1937)

Patrick Hamilton - Hangover Square (1941)

Patrick White - The Living and the Dead (1941)

Norman Collins - London Belongs to Me (1945)

Elizabeth Bowen - The Heat of the Day (1949)

George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

Agatha Christie - Crooked House (1949)

C. S. Lewis - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)

John Wyndham - The Day of the Triffids (1951)

Graham Greene - The End of the Affair (1951) & The Destructors (1954)

Dodie Smith - The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956)

Colin MacInnes - Absolute Beginners (1959) and Mr Love and Justice (1960)

Iris Murdoch - A Severed Head (1961)

Muriel Spark - The Girls of Slender Means (1963)

P. L. Travers - Mary Poppins (1964). Takes place on 17 Cherry Tree Lane and at the Bank of England.

Doris Lessing - The Four-Gated City (1969)

Michael Moorcock - The Jerry Cornelius stories (from 1969), Mother London (1988), King of the City (2000)

Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

Maureen Duffy - Capital (1975)

Peter Ackroyd - The Great Fire of London (1982), Hawksmoor (1985), English Music (1992), The House of Doctor Dee (1993), Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994)

Alan Moore - V for Vendetta (1982 – 1989)

Iain Banks - Walking on Glass (1985)

Martin Amis - Money (1984), London Fields (1989)

Tom Clancy - Patriot Games (1987)

Hanif Kureishi - The Buddha of Suburbia (1987)

Vertigo (DC Comics) - Hellblazer (1988 - 2013)

Salman Rushdie - The Satanic Verses (1989)

Josephine Hart - Damage (1991)

Bernice Rubens - A Solitary Grief (1991)

Barbara Vine - King Solomon's Carpet (1991)

Nick Hornby - Fever Pitch (1992), High Fidelity (1996), About a Boy (1998)

Will Self - Grey Area (1996)

Julian Barnes - Metroland (1997)

Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones' Diary (1997)

Anthony Frewin - London Blues (1997), set mainly in Soho at the time of the Profumo affair

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (1997) is set partly in real London, and partly in an alternative "London Below".

Ian McEwan - Enduring Love (1997)

J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series (1997 - 2007) features fictional London locations: the hidden Diagon Alley, and a Platform 9 ³⁄₄ at King's Cross.

Kouta Hirano's Hellsing Manga (1997-2009) casts London as the story's main setting.

William Boyd - Armadillo (1998)

Alan Moore - From Hell (1999)

21st-Century fiction

Hanif Kureishi - Gabriel's Gift (2001)

John Lanchester - Mr Phillips (2001), Capital (2012)

Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief (2001)

Philip Reeve - Mortal Engines (2001), A Darkling Plain (2006), Fever Crumb (2009)

Zadie Smith - White Teeth (2001)

Miles Tredinnick - Topless, (2001)

Iain Banks - Dead Air (2002)

Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code (2003)

William Gibson - Pattern Recognition (2003)

Zoë Heller - Notes on a Scandal (2003)

Adam Thirlwell - Politics (2003)

Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver (2003), The Confusion (2004), The System of the World (2004))

Monica Ali - Brick Lane (2004)

Ben Elton - Past Mortem (2004)

A. N. Wilson - My Name Is Legion (2004)

Nick Hornby - A Long Way Down (2005)

Ian McEwan - Saturday (2005)

Will Self - The Book of Dave (2006)

Charles Finch - A Beautiful Blue Death (2007), The September Society (2008), The Fleet Street Murders (2009), A Stranger in Mayfair (2010)

Mary Novik - Conceit (2007)

Charlie Fletcher - The Stoneheart (2008)

Anthony Horowitz - Stormbreaker, Eagle Strike, Scorpia, Ark Angel (2008)

Ruth Rendell - Portobello (2008)

Audrey Niffenegger - Her Fearful Symmetry (2009)

DC Comics - Wonder Woman is based in London following The New 52 relaunch of her ongoing series (2011–present)

Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London (2011), Moon Over Soho (2011), Whispers Under Ground (2012), Broken Homes (2013) The Hanging Tree (2016)

Mike Bartlett - 13 (2011)

Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014) Career of Evil (2015)

Anakana Schofield - Martin John (2016)

Robert J. Sherman - Bumblescratch (2016)

Nursery rhymes

Several nursery rhymes mention places in London.

London Bridge is mentioned in London Bridge is falling down.

Oranges and Lemons mentions several London Churches.

Pop Goes the Weasel one version refers to the Eagle pub on the City Road.

References

London in fiction Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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