Walking Dickensian London
Meet Little Nell and David Copperfield, encounter Scrooge and Fagin
The characters and novels of Charles Dickens are forever linked with Victorian London, a London which still exists as Richard Jones' book Walking Dickensian London shows
Although Dickensian London is a world that emerges from the best of Charles Dickens's fiction, like Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Martin Chuzzlewit, A Christmas Carol and The Old Curiosity Shop, it's also a very real world. Charles Dickens was the great writer of his day. He dramatised as any writer does, but everything came from the world around him. If you want to know what Victorian London was like, read Charles Dickens as well as the historians.
To take you round the streets of Dickensian London you need a good guide. I recommend taking a tour with a real guide, and also look round on the internet for downloadable MP3 podcasts of London walks (for help read my Article on downloading London MP3 walks by clicking here.) But if you're a real fan and want to know all about Dickens's London, you need a guidebook which covers the capital thoroughly. And that book is Walking Dickensian London by Richard Jones.
The book has 25 original walks, devised by the author, including two that take you round Cobham and Rochester, where Charles Dickens spent the early and later years of his life. The 23 London walks don't only guide visitors round the Victorian cobbled streets described in Dickens' novels, but all over the city. Dickens was the most successful writer of his day, and as such he made the social rounds. This book takes you to famous and literary areas like Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia, Soho and Hampstead, as well as atmospheric historic quarters such as Southwark, Clerkenwell, the East End and Greenwich. Each walk has a detailed street map too.
Author Richard Jones has been leading Dickens walks around London since 1982, and runs the London tour company Discovery Walks and Tours. He has appeared on the History and Discovery channels, and written several other books including Walking Haunted London and Haunted Britain and Ireland.
I did get to know London quite well in the 15 years or so that I lived there, and this book taught me even more about the London of Charles Dickens. If you're planning a visit to London and have any interest it all in its history or its literature, then make sure you get a copy of Walking Dickensian London. I'm sure it will meet your Great Expectations!
Walking Dickensian London costs £12.99, is published by New Holland Publishers.
Read about downloadable MP3 walks for London by clicking here.
See how to get your free London events guide when booking your London hotel by clicking here.
Read how to get a free monthly London events guide by clicking here.
