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Title: The Oxford Book of London by Paul Bailey ISBN: 0-19-214192-9 Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 March, 1996 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $30.00

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: Definitive London
Comment: Well, perhaps not definitive London, but a good collection nonetheless. Like most modern histories of London, the books pays only cursory attention to the period prior the Norman Conquest; there is a simple reason for this -- not much exists text-wise to give account of life, history, etc. prior to this time. The Oxford Book of London, edited by Paul Bailey, is divided into three sections: Part I, Twelfth to Eighteenth Century London; Part II, Nineteenth Century London; and Part III: Twentieth Century London.

Part I includes observations and rememberings of monks, poets, diplomats, clerics, and royals (being the major divisions of literate people during the 12th to 18th centuries). Included are visions of Chaucer and Shakespeare, Nashe and Donne, Jonson and Herrick, Hobbes and Pepys. The texts include passages from person diaries and newspaper headlines such as 'A Whale in London' circa 1658. All sides presented, as a perusal of headlines will show: "A Revel! A Revel!' balances 'An Absolute Hell on Earth'. Here you will be introduced to (or reminded of) Wat Tyler, Moll Flanders, John Boswell; you'll walk the streets as seen by Mozart and Haydn.

Part II narrows the focus a bit, and when most people think about 'Old London', it is in fact this period of time to which most of them harken back. The nineteenth century saw London's explosive growth and true development as an imperial world city. In 1834 Thomas de Quincey published 'The Nation of London'; excerpts are here. Wordsworth and Blake wrote of London during this period, as did Keats and Thackeray (his 'How to live well on nothing a year' is wonderful). This is also the London of Dickens and Sherlock Holmes, perhaps the two visions of London that endure most. The rise of popular press also took hold during this period -- the true miracle here of this section is that it does not go on for a thousand pages.

Part III is a similar miracle. London is established, in many ways a city of unparalleled urban blight (Jack London--hmmm, where do you suppose he got that name?--called it a 'vast and malodorous sea'). Shaw's post-Victorian London images remain firm in our minds, as does E.M. Forster's; T.S. Eliot describes London as an 'Unreal City', yet, for the fire wardens during the war, the city was far too real, and far too flammable.

One is inclined to agree that London is in many ways the 'Capital of all Capitals', to quote Steen Eiler Rasmussen (1937), and yet, while there is hopefulness in the latest visions of London, there is also a sadness and an underlying fear that perhaps the best days are behind.