London Fictions

The content of the London Fictions site is being transferred to this new site run by the Literary London Society
Articles will also remain available here for the time being

'lively and compelling.
If there are gaps in your London reading,
this book will help to fill them.'
Times Literary Supplement review of the London Fictions book
- now available for £8.95 including UK postage from the publishers

Try our walk round Alexander Baron's manor

And the most popular page in October 2021:
Patrick Hamilton, The Midnight Bell by Simon Goulding

London Fictions is a site celebrating the novels which capture the essence of an absorbing city. On this site are articles about more than eighty novels which have a powerful feel of London, or a locality or community within the city. Each is written by an expert and enthusiast.

Some of these novels are well known and widely read. Others may be new to you. We hope this site will encourage you to read more of the fiction set in London, and to walk the streets amid which these novels depict.

We are keen for new contributions - please do offer to write. And here are the novels already posted on this site - click on the book cover to be taken straight there:

Vesna Goldsworthy

Monsieur Ka - 2018

written by Jane McChrystal

Tony White

The Fountain in the Forest - 2018

written by Suneel Mehmi

Claire North

84K - 2018

written by Suneel Mehmi

Balli Kaur Jaswal

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows - 2017

written by Suneel Mehmi

Michèle Roberts

The Walworth Beauty - 2017

written by Suneel Mehmi

Kamila Shamsie

Home Fire - 2017

written by Andrew Whitehead

Natasha Pulley

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - 2015
written by Suneel Mehmi

Paula Hawkins

The Girl on the Train - 2015

written by Jo Casebourne

.

Zadie Smith

NW - 2012

written by Philippa Thomas

.

Martin Amis

Lionel Asbo - 2012

written by Nicolas Tredell

Jonathan Kemp

London Triptych - 2010

written by Suneel Mehmi

Xiaolu Guo

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary
for Lovers - 2007
written by Susie Thomas

.

Naomi Alderman

Disobedience - 2006

written by Audrey Snee

Monica Ali

Brick Lane - 2003

written by Sanchita Islam

Iain Banks

Dead Air - 2002

written by Courttia Newland

Chris Petit

The Hard Shoulder - 2001

written by Valentine Cunningham

Zadie Smith

White Teeth - 2000

written by Lisa Gee

.

Peter Ackroyd

The Plato Papers - 1999

written by David Charnick

.

Nigel Williams

The Wimbledon Poisoner - 1990

written by David Charnick

Neil Bartlett

Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall - 1990
written by Gregory Woods

.

Hanif Kureishi

The Buddha of Suburbia - 1990

written by Susie Thomas

Martin Amis

London Fields - 1989

written by Carla Scura

Muriel Spark

A Far Cry from Kensington - 1988

written by Jane McChrystal

J.M. O'Neill

Duffy is Dead - 1987

written by Ken Worpole

Penelope Fitzgerald

Offshore - 1979

written by John Wilson

Lionel Davidson

The Chelsea Murders - 1978

written by Dermot Kavanagh

.

Kamala Markandaya

The Nowhere Man - 1972

written by Charles R. Larson

Nell Dunn

Poor Cow - 1967

written by Jane McChrystal

.

Anthony Cronin

The Life of Riley - 1964

written by Tony Murray

.

Waguih Ghali

Beer in the Snooker Club - 1964

written by Susie Thomas

.

B.S. Johnson

Albert Angelo - 1964

written by Andy Wimbush

Alexander Baron

The Lowlife - 1963

written by Ken Worpole

Len Deighton

The Ipcress File - 1962

written by Nicolas Tredell

.

Robert Poole

London, E1 - 1961

written by Rachel Lichtenstein

.

Laura Del-Rivo

The Furnished Room - 1961

written by Nicolas Tredell

.

Terry Taylor

Baron's Court, All Change - 1961

written by Stewart Home

Colin Wilson

Adrift in Soho - 1961

written by Colin Stanley

.

Colin Wilson

Ritual in the Dark - 1960

written by Colin Stanley

Colin MacInnes

Mr Love and Justice - 1960

written by Sam Wiseman

Lynne Reid Banks

The L-Shaped Room - 1960

written by Cathi Unsworth

.

E.R. Braithwaite

To Sir, with Love - 1959

written by Susie Thomas

.

Colin MacInnes

Absolute Beginners - 1959

written by Jerry White

Kevin FitzGerald

Trouble in West Two - 1958

written by Cathi Unsworth

.

Colin MacInnes

City of Spades - 1957

written by Kate Houlden

.

Gerald Kersh

Fowlers End - 1957

written by Séamas Duffy

Samuel Selvon

The Lonely Londoners - 1956

written by Bill Schwarz

Iris Murdoch

Under the Net - 1954

written by John Wilson

Jack Lindsay

Rising Tide - 1953

written by Andy Croft

.

Alexander Baron

Rosie Hogarth - 1951

written by Andrew Whitehead

Graham Greene

The End of the Affair - 1951

written by Nicolas Tredell

Rose Macaulay

The World My Wilderness - 1950

written by Sam Wiseman

George Orwell

Nineteen Eighty-Four - 1949

written by Sarah Wise

.

Elizabeth Bowen

The Heat of the Day - 1948

written by Jane Miller

.

Norman Collins

London Belongs To Me - 1945

written by Séamas Duffy

Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Guignol's Band I & II - 1944 / 1964

written by Claire Lozier

Graham Greene

The Ministry of Fear - 1943

written by Nicolas Tredell

Patrick Hamilton

Hangover Square - 1941

written by John Lucas

.

John Sommerfield

Trouble in Porter Street - 1939

written by Andrew Whitehead

.

Sajjad Zaheer

A Night in London - 1938

written by Madhu Singh

Samuel Beckett

Murphy - 1938

written by Nicolas Tredell

Virginia Woolf

The Years - 1937

written by Nuala Casey

James Curtis

The Gilt Kid - 1936

written by Stefan Slater

John Sommerfield

May Day - 1936

written by John King

Simon Blumenfeld

Jew Boy - 1935

written by Rachel Lichtenstein

.

Pamela Hansford Johnson

This Bed Thy Centre - 1935

written by Zoë Fairbairns

A.P. Herbert

The Water Gipsies - 1930

written by John Wilson

Jean Rhys

After Leaving Mr Mackenzie - 1930

written by Susie Thomas

.

Patrick Hamilton

The Midnight Bell - 1929

written by Simon Goulding

Lao She

Mr Ma and Son - 1929

written by Anne Witchard

Christopher Isherwood

All the Conspirators - 1928

written by Katharine Stevenson

.

Virginia Woolf

Mrs Dalloway - 1925

written by Anne Fernald

Aldous Huxley

Antic Hay - 1923

written by Ged Pope

Arnold Bennett

Riceyman Steps - 1923

written by Fran Pickering

Virginia Woolf

Jacob's Room - 1922

written by Robert B. Todd

.

Dorothy Richardson

The Tunnel - 1919

written by Bobby Seal

Thomas Burke

Limehouse Nights - 1916

written by Anne Witchard

.

A. Neil Lyons

Arthur's - 1908

written by Peter Jones

Joseph Conrad

The Secret Agent - 1907

written by Sarah Wise

.

Arthur Morrison

To London Town - 1899

written by Eliza Cubitt

M.P. Shiel

The Yellow Danger - 1898

written by Anne Witchard

William Pett Ridge

Mord Em'ly - 1898

written by Jonathon Green

.

Arthur Morrison

A Child of the Jago - 1896

written by Sarah Wise

.

H.W. Nevinson

Neighbours of Ours - 1895

written by Angela V. John

.

George Gissing

New Grub Street - 1891

written by Bobby Seal

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Sign of Four - 1890

written by Andrew Lane

.

George Gissing

The Nether World - 1889

written by Andrew Whitehead

.

Julia Frankau

A Babe in Bohemia - 1889

written by Lisa Robertson

.

Margaret Harkness

In Darkest London - 1889

written by Flore Janssen

Margaret Harkness

Out of Work - 1888

written by John Lucas

Amy Levy

Reuben Sachs - 1888

written by Susie Thomas

.

Walter Besant

All Sorts and Conditions of Men - 1882

written by Eliza Cubitt

.

Charles Dickens

Great Expectations - 1860-61

written by David Parker

.

Daniel Defoe

A Journal of the Plague Year - 1722

written by Dermot Kavanagh

An exciting new publication - the first book devoted to the life and writing of Alexander Baron (author of, among others, The Lowlife). Edited by Susie Thomas, Andrew Whitehead and Ken Worpole, So We Live: the novels of Alexander Baron, contains six articles about different aspects of his life as well as the transcript of an interview with him and some excerpts from hir writing. There's also a guide to a walk round Baron's manor (Stoke Newington).

So We Live:
the novels of Alexander Baron
is published by Five Leaves
at £12.99.

NOW JUST £8.95

Published by Five Leaves,
the London Fictions book
has contributions by twenty-six historians, writers and enthusiasts, each writing about a commanding London novel and the city it depicts.

It's available direct from the publishers at the much reduced price of £8.95 - including UK postage.

The Literary London Society
produces an excellent
online journal -
the Literary London Journal.
Here's the link to the
latest issue

If you haven't joined the
Literary London Society - do.
Here's the link for details.

Introduction to
London Fictions

=Jerry White=

No city has been written about more than London. The centre of printing in English for more than half a millennium, London has found itself the muse of poets and playwrights, journalists, essayists and historians and – most important of all – fiction writers, the men and women who have imagined the city and its people since the time of Daniel Defoe, if not before. London is truly unknowable, but we get closest to it through the novels and short-stories whose characters work out their destinies in this most complex and multilayered of cities.

Fiction has peopled London in the mind, and indelibly so. However hard historians try to unearth the lived reality of say, Victorian London, we still get our sharpest insights in the fiction, both great and small, of the time. The fiction writers have the benefit of immediacy, of material that is fresh and real to them as they write, of what it feels now – at the time of writing – to be a Londoner and to deal with the city’s challenges and changing imperatives. ‘Dickensian London’ has retained an indelible resonance almost a century-and-a-half after the novelist’s death. Although the years that followed provided no such transcendant figure, similar revelations might be sought for the London of the 1930s, to choose just one fruitful decade among many, in the novels of Patrick Hamilton, J.B. Priestley, George Orwell, Pamela Hansford Johnson, Ethel Mannin, Rosemary Lehmann and a host of others.

In these fictions we find the great themes of London life as they have been etched out generation by generation. The mesmeric draw of London, for instance, for the talented youth of provincial England and the nations of the British Isles, and indeed for Londoners from the whole world over. A small library of fictions has been constructed around the desires and temptations that have brought people to London, and the joys, tribulations and disappointments of metropolitan life once they arrive there. Of the difficulties in their way, none has been weightier than finding somewhere decent to live, so that housing has itself become the main subject of scores of London novels (from Richard Whiteing’s No 5 John Street, 1899, through Lynne Reid Banks’s The L-Shaped Room of 1960 to J.G. Ballard’s dystopic London futurama of 1975, High-Rise, and many more). Of the dangers of London life none has been more potent than sexual desire, enlivened by uncountable encounters in street and workplace and pub, an enduring theme that stretches from the very beginnings of London fictions to today (we might instance stellar examples in Samuel Richardson’s Pamela of 1741 and Martin Amis’s London Fields of 1986). Most of all, perhaps, the novelists remind us that it is love and money – not necessarily in that order – that keep this city ticking.

One of the great themes of London life is change, especially the restless transformation of the city’s intricate social geography. In London fictions, more often than not, this theme for the modern reader is implicit. Some novels have indeed made a changing London district their own theme, like Monica Dickens’s 1960 novel of Notting Hill, The Heart of London, or Mervyn Jones’s East-End family saga Holding On (1975). More often, readers will be struck – often intrigued and moved – by just how the London they know now has altered since the novel was written. The Hoxton carefully and tenderly represented in Walter Besant’s Children of Gibeon (1886) was recognisable even into the 1960s: there’s nothing left of it now. For those newcomers who have made a life there in the twenty-first century it must come as a considerable shock to see just how far this tiny and difficult area of inner north-east London has rewritten itself; and how the Hoxtonites have altered in the process.

It is this single theme on which we’ve focused in London Fictions. We asked a selection of contemporary Londonists – the term is coming once more into fashion but is originally Marcus Fall’s from 1880 – to write about a novel they love or admire or maybe hate, to tell us something of plot and character and just what makes it special in the London canon, and to dwell briefly on how the city described there differs from the London of 2013. From a long tradition, and given the prominence understandably accorded to Charles Dickens in his bicentenary year, we decided to restrict our contributors’ choice of novels to writers active after his death in 1870. We believe their selection will contain surprises, while refreshing delight in some old favourites. We think the variety of books surveyed will appeal to all who are interested in London’s literary heritage. And we hope that there will be scope for subsequent collections that explore a tradition that has been built by literally hundreds of writers. For London, while ever unknowable, is inexhaustible too.

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To contact ​London Fictions

Introduction toLondon Fictions =Jerry White=

To contact
London Fictions

Introduction to
London Fictions

=Jerry White=