Product Overview
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, and secrecies.
Jan Morris
London: The Biography is the pinnacle of Peter Ackroyds brilliant obsession with the eponymous city. In this unusual and engaging work, Ackroyd brings the reader through time into the city whose institutions and idiosyncrasies have permeated much of his works of fiction and nonfiction.
Peter Ackroyd sees London as a living, breathing organism, with its own laws of growth and change. Reveling in the citys riches as well as its raucousness, the author traces thematically its growth from the time of the Druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Anecdotal, insightful, and wonderfully entertaining, London is animated by Ackroyds concern for the close relationship between the present and the past, as well as by what he describes as the peculiar echoic quality of London, whereby its texture and history actively affect the lives and personalities of its citizens.
London confirms Ackroyds status as what one critic has called our ages greatest London imagination.
