Accounts of sixteenth-century London are of course dominated by Stow’s A Survey of London; the edition by C.L. Kingsford (London, 1908) is still the most authoritative. More recent studies include Elizabethan London by M. Holmes (London, 1969), Worlds Within Worlds: Structures of Life in Sixteenth-Century London by S. Rappaport (Cambridge, 1989), Trade, Government and Economy in pre-Industrial England edited by D.C. Coleman and A.H. John (London, 1976), London and the Reformation by S. Brigden (Oxford, 1989) and The Pursuit of Stability: Social Relations in Elizabethan London by I.W. Archer (Cambridge, 1991).
The diaries of John Evelyn, and of Samuel Pepys, are of course essential for any understanding of seventeenth-century London. And Macaulay’s History of England from the Accession of James II is still immensely readable. But there are specific volumes of great interest, among them London and the Civil War edited by S. Porter (London, 1996), and The Rebuilding of London After the Great Fire by T.F. Reddaway (London, 1940). P. Earle’s A City Full of People: Men and Women of London, 1650-1750 (London, 1994) is a fascinating quarry. L. Picard’s Restoration London (London, 1997) provides a detailed synopsis of daily living; it is complemented by the images within The Cries and Hawkers of London: The Engravings of Marcellus Laroon, edited by S. Shesgreen (Aldershot, 1990), which provide direct access to the streets and people of the late seventeenth century. I have also made use of Wenceslaus Hollar by R. Godfrey (New Haven, 1994) which provides different, but no less interesting, images. E. Ward’s The London Spy (London, 1697-1703) comes at the end of the century, but not at the end of a rich tradition of London “low life” sketches.
Eighteenth-century London is replete with source material, from the poems and plays of John Gay to the engravings of William Hogarth. Any biography of Samuel Johnson or William Blake will provide a vision of the city in its general and particular circumstances. Specific mention, however, might be made of J. Boswell’s London Journal 1762-1763 edited by F.A. Pottle (London, 1950). The world of Addison and Steele can be discovered within the pages of Selections from the Tatler and the Spectator edited by A. Ross (London, 1982). The best general survey of the period is M.D. George’s London Life in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1925) while J. Summerson’s Georgian London (London, 1945) will clarify the reader’s mind on architectural matters. George Rudé’s Hanoverian London, 1714-1808 (London, 1971) remains a very important study. Of more specific interest is London in the Age of Industrialisation by L.D. Schwarz (Cambridge, 1992), while M. Waller’s 1700: Scenes from London Life (London, 2000) provides an intimate picture of ordinary life. Crime, death and punishment seem to emerge as objects of attention in eighteenth-century London; among the books devoted to them are P. Linebaugh’s The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in Eighteenth-Century London (London, 1991), and Death and the Metropolis by J. Landers (Cambridge, 1993); of related interest is I. McCalman’s Radical Underworld (Cambridge, 1988). John Gay’s London by W.H. Irving (Cambridge, 1923) is precise and informative, as is J. Uglow’s Hogarth: A Life and a World (London, 1997). The latter biography can be read alongside the edition of Hogarth’s Graphic Works edited with a commentary by R. Paulson (London, 1989). The Godwins and the Shelleys by W. St. Clair (London, 1989) provides more interesting source material on radical London, and S. Gardner’s The Tyger, the Lamb and the Terrible Desart (London, 1998) provides an approximation of the Blakean vision.
The nineteenth-century city has been the object of fascinated enquiry ever since the nineteenth century itself. Major texts are of course those of Henry Mayhew and Charles Booth. Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor, taken from articles in the Morning Chronicle and published in four volumes between 1851 and 1862, mingles anecdote with statistic in a characteristically mid-nineteenth century style. Yet it remains the single most important source for the manner and speech of the nineteenth-century poor, enlivened by Mayhew’s eye for detail which can truly be described as Dickensian. The seventeen volumes of Booth’s Life and Labour of the People of London (1891-1902) are perhaps less colourful but no less sympathetic. This was also the century for the great compilations of London’s history by enthusiasts and antiquarians. Principal among them are the six volumes of Old and New London edited by W. Thornbury and E. Walford (London, 1883-1885), which moves from area to area like some great eagle-eyed observer, and C. Knight’s London in six volumes (London, 1841) which provides a series of long essays ranging in subject from prisons to beer-making to advertisements. London: A Pilgrimage by Blanchard Jerrold and Gustave Doré (London, 1872) contains haunting images of the savagery and industry of imperial London. An edition of George Scharf’s London, with a text by P. Jackson (London, 1987), offers images of early nineteenth-century London in a different tone and mode from those of Doré. There are many books upon the Victorian poor, but those I have found most useful include The Rookeries of London by T. Beames (London, 1850), People of the Rookery by D.M. Green (London, 1986) and J. Hollingshead’s Ragged London in 1861 (London, 1986). F. Sheppard’s London 1808-1870: The Infernal Wen (London, 1971) is also highly instructive in this context. For a more romantic picture of the city, it is worth looking at Grandfather’s London by O.J. Morris (London, 1960) while Dickens’s London: An Imaginative Vision (London, 1991) contains many rare and distinctive photographs of the period. More can be discovered in Old London by G. Bush (London, 1975), part of the Archive Photograph Series. There are also general histories. The Victorian City, edited by H.J. Dyos and M. Wolff (London, 1973) is invaluable, together with D.J. Olsen’s The Growth of Victorian London (London, 1976); the latter is particularly interesting for its account of the building work of the period, culminating in the partial destruction of Georgian London and the growth of the great new estates. Tallis’s London Street Views, 1838-1840, (London, 1969) helps to complete the picture. London World City 1800-1840, edited by Celina Fox (London, 1992), contains a valuable series of essays from science to architecture. The Making of Modern London, 1815-1914 by G. Weightman and S. Humphries (London, 1983) should also be studied.
There are also many nineteenth-and early twentieth-century memoirs, now practically forgotten but still an impressive and comprehensive account of the city known and unknown. There are anecdotes, and walks, and rambles, with titles like H.V. Morton’s The Spell of London (London, 1926), C.W. Heckthorne’s London Memories and London Souvenirs (London, 1900 and 1891), Bygone London Life by E.L. Apperson (London, 1903) and London Revisited by E.V. Lucas (London, 1916). The two volumes of A. Hare’s Walks in London (London, 1883) are charming as well as erudite while W.G. Bell’s Unknown London (London, 1919) is a repository of secret urban knowledge. From an earlier date come C.M. Smith’s The Little World of London (London, 1857) and Aleph’s London Scenes and London People (London, 1863); E.T. Cook’s Highways and Byways in London (London, 1906) affords similar nostalgic pleasures. A.T. Camden-Pratt’s Unknown London (London, 1897) covers among other subjects Newgate and the Wool Exchange, while The West End of Yesterday and Today by E.B. Chancellor (London, 1926) speaks for itself. R. Nevill’s Night Life in London and Paris (London, 1926) is in a similar category. A.V. Compton-Rickett’s The London Life of Yesterday (London, 1909) covers many centuries with a very light touch. But particular mention should be made of another great London historian, Walter Besant, who published a number of volumes on the life and history of the city. His South London (London, 1899), East London (London, 1901), London (London, 1904), Medieval London (London, 1906) and London North of the Thames (London, 1911) provide a diorama of urban history; his bust is to be found beside the Thames opposite Northumberland Avenue.