Illustrated London

London: The Biography, the triumphant culmination of Peter Ackroyd’s lifelong obsession with the history and topography of London -- now in this beautifully illustrated edition.

So much of Peter Ackroyd’s work has been about the life and history of London. Now here is his definitive account of the great city. For him, it is a living organism, with its own laws of growth and change. In this way, London is a biography rather than a history, standing apart from histories in its scope and diversity. Not merely a chronological record of events, Ackroyd gives us the benefit of his immense knowledge and historical insight to bring us his extraordinary historical vision of the city from the time of the Druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Included are fascinating chapters on the history of silence, the history of light, the history of childhood, Cockney speech, suicide, and the history of drink.

London is perhaps the most wide-ranging and important study of the city ever written, and confirms Ackroyd’s status as what one critic has called “our age’s greatest London imagination.”