London Book Mark – 10 Literary London Locations

Introduction
London Lit Parade
London Book Mark
FAQs

10 Literary London Locations

Browse our Online London Guide Book Shop for London Books >>

1. Dickens House Museum, 48 Doughty Street, WC1
– Now features rooms reconstructing Charles Dickens‘s time in the house, which he shared with wife Kate and sister-in-law Mary from 1837-39. Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby were written within these walls.

2. 221B Baker Street, W1
– The famous residence of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle‘s detective Sherlock Holmes. Though 221 exists today – it is currently a building society office – in the author’s time the address was entirely fictional as Baker Street didn’t reach anywhere near this figure.

3. 84 Charing Cross Road
– Here once stood Marks & Co, the bookshop in Helen Hanff‘s novel which was filmed to great success. Charing Cross Road is still a major centre for bookshops.

4. Canonbury, Islington, N1
– Especially in the first half of this century, Canonbury was a favoured district for writers and artists among whose number were Evelyn Waugh in 1928 at 17a Canonbury Place and George Orwell in 1945 at 27 Canonbury Square.

5. Bloomsbury, WC1
– Home of many of the Bloomsbury Group, a cadre of decadent upper class intellectuals which boasted key figures in pre-war English cultural life such as EM Forster, Lytton Strachey, JM Keynes and Virginia Woolf. Nowadays the area mostly houses the University of London and some hospitals.

6. Albany, Piccadilly, W1
– Originally a set of swanky bachelor chambers, the Albany has been home to many a top literary name such as Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Lord Byron, JB Priestly.

7. Hampstead
– Plush and leafy inner suburb that has long been home to the great and good of letters and literature including Keats, HG Wells and DH Lawrence. Recently graduated from mere geographical importance to become a literary figure in its own right in the form of the Hampstead Novel.

8. London Fields, Hackney, E8
– Evocative title of Martin Amis’s lowlife shocker but, in terms of location, an entirely bogus one. The novel is actually set in the west London area of Notting Hill, the same setting, incidentally, of Colin MacInnes’s Absolute Beginners.

9. City Road, EC1
– Setting for the seminal nursery rhyme Pop Goes the Weasel. Altogether now: “Up and down the City Road, in and out the Eagle, that’s the way the money goes, pop goes the weasel!” The Eagle was an old style pub located on the road.

10. Fitzroy Tavern, 43 Windmill Street, W1
– 1940s meeting place for some of the era’s most important writers such as Cyril Connolly, George Orwell and Dylan Thomas.

Browse our Online London Guide Book Shop for London Books >>

Next Page (London Lit FAQs)