London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets

London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets - Paperback

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London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets
  • London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets
London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets - Paperback

London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets - Paperback

by Peter Ackroyd
$19.00
$19.00

Book Overview

by Peter Ackroyd (Author)

In this vividly descriptive short study, Peter Ackroyd tunnels down through the geological layers of London, meeting the creatures that dwell in darkness and excavating the lore and mythology beneath the surface.

There is a Bronze Age trackway below the Isle of Dogs, Anglo-Saxon graves rest under St. Pauls, and the monastery of Whitefriars lies beneath Fleet Street. To go under London is to penetrate history, and Ackroyd's book is filled with the stories unique to this underworld: the hydraulic device used to lower bodies into the catacombs in Kensal Green cemetery; the door in the plinth of the statue of Boadicea on Westminster Bridge that leads to a huge tunnel packed with cables for gas, water, and telephone; the sulphurous fumes on the Underground's Metropolitan Line. Highly imaginative and delightfully entertaining, London Under is Ackroyd at his best.

Author Biography

PETER ACKROYD is the author of London: The Biography, Shakespeare: The Biography, Thames: The Biography, and Venice: Pure City; acclaimed biographies of T. S. Eliot, Dickens, Blake, and Sir Thomas More; and several successful novels. He has won the Whitbread Book Award for Biography, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Somerset Maugham Award, among others.

Number of Pages: 240
Dimensions: 0.68 x 8 x 5.32 IN
Publication Date: November 13, 2012
ISBN9780307473783
Author Peter Ackroyd
PublisherKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
GenreHistory, Technology, and Travel
FormatPaperback
PublishedNovember 2012
LanguageENG- English
Pages240
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

History Nonfiction Transportation Travel

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London has been the main character in the work of Peter Ackroyd ever since his first novel, The Great Fire of London. His Hawksmoor won the Whitbread and the Guardian Fiction Prize, Chatterton was shortlisted for the Booker, London: the Biography won the South Bank Show Annual Award for Literature. Reviewers commonly categorize him as the Dickens of our day.

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