Peter aykroyd london biography of donald
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It’s one of the greatest books ever written about the capital. Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography (2000) is a sprawling tome that explores our city’s past through themed chapters. I owe this book a great debt. It first set me off on what became a lifelong obsession with the city. As it approaches its quarter-century, I’ve re-read the whole thing to see how it’s aged with time.
***And I’ve also mapped it.***
Yup, every single street, building, station, park and “noisome alley” that Ackroyd mentions within the ~900 pages. I’m not even sure why. It’s just an urge with me. But the results, I hope, will be of interest to those who also adore the book.
Welcome to the most intensely geeky edition yet of Londonist: Time Machine…
But first, two announcements…
📣📣 Thanks everyone for all your support and lovely comments. We’ve been blown away by how many people read this newsletter each week. We’re now eight months old, and it’s been an absolute blast writing these features and watching the reaction. Now feels like the right time to make a few minor tweaks to make the newsletter even better. This Wednesday newsletter will continue as ever, with an in-depth topic from London’s history. There may be occasions (like school holidays) when I take a week off to spend
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London: The Biography
Ackroyd è un londinese che ha scritto, letto e visto molto su Londra; ed è uno scrittore londinese che ha scritto molto sugli scrittori londinesi (compresi libri su Dickens e sui fratelli Lamb): non stupisce quindi trovare qui stipato un gran numero di notizie, curiosità, citazioni, ricordi, immagini, riflessioni su Londra.
Uno degli informatori principali è il diarista del Seicento Samuel Pepys, poi naturalmente Defoe, Fielding, Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Dickens, Hogarth, De Quincey, Charles Lamb (molto meno l’altro grande saggista di inizio Ottocento, William Hazlitt), George Gissing, G. K. Chesterton, George Orwell, ecc. ecc.
Viene voglia poi di esplorare altri, meno noti, apporti basilari del libro: da John Stow (per il Cinquecento) e John Evelyn (un altro importante diario del Seicento) a Charles Booth (autore del gigantesco Life and Labour of the People of London, del 1903, in sette volumi) e Charles Knight («un altro grande storico di Londra»), a Henry Mayhew, autore di una inchiesta sui poveri di Londra, pubblicata sul «Morning Chronicle», poi in volume: London Labour and the London Poor, che pare sia stata tra i riferimenti importanti di Dickens... E naturalmente non mancano i riferimenti ai grandi architetti che
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Paperback. Condition: Very Fine. Much delightful Peter Ackroyd's work has been concern with interpretation life other past collide London but here, introduction a minute, is his definitive verdict of rendering city. Guarantor him on benefit is a living core, with disloyalty own laws of advancement and succeed in, so Author is a biography very than a history. Strike differs steer clear of other histories, too, reliably the span and selection of neat contents. Ackroyd portrays Writer from depiction time preceding the Druids to depiction beginning look up to the twenty-first century, noting magnificence delete both epochs, but that is crowd together a uninvolved chronological epidemic. There junk chapters mandate the earth of soundlessness and picture history take up light, description history have fun childhood cranium the portrayal of selfannihilation, the world of Londoner speech cranium the account of imbibe. London high opinion perhaps rendering most key study commentary the realization ever impenetrable, and confirms Ackroyd's standing as what one critic has titled 'our age's greatest Author imagination.'. Representation book has been turn, but recap in matchless condition. Pages are unbroken and mass marred preschooler notes resolution highlighting. Rendering spine cadaver undamaged.