London Under

In this vividly descriptive short study, Peter Ackroyd tunnels down through the geological layers of London, meeting the creatures that dwell in darkness and excavating the lore and mythology beneath the surface. There is a Bronze Age trackway below the Isle of Dogs, Anglo-Saxon graves rest under St. Pauls, and the monastery of Whitefriars lies beneath Fleet Street. To go under London is to penetrate history, and Ackroyd's book is filled with the stories unique to this underworld: the hydraulic device used to lower bodies into the catacombs in Kensal Green cemetery; the door in the plinth of the statue of Boadicea on Westminster Bridge that leads to a huge tunnel packed with cables for gas, water, and telephone; the sulphurous fumes on the Underground's Metropolitan Line. Highly imaginative and delightfully entertaining, London Under is Ackroyd at his best.

London has been under attack for literally centuries. Michael Foley’s book records the dramatic military history of the capital from Roman times until the Second World War and beyond. Throughout its early history London was at the centre of hostilities, not always instigated by foreign enemies, but more often from the city’s own inhabitants or those from other parts of Britain. As well as the terrible Blitz on London during the Second World War, earlier conflicts which made an impact on the city are also documented, including the Civil Wars of twelfth and seventeenth centuries, the wars between King John and the barons, uprisings against the poll tax, the Gordon Riots and numerous other rebellions and conflicts that have been largely forgotten in the twenty-first century. London Under Attack is a must-read for all those interested in military history as well as the turbulent history of our nation’s capital and draws some interesting comparisons between the past and modern times.

Six stories about Christmas and winter from award-winning writer, Jordi Llavina. Llavina's stories conjure up ghosts from the past, old loves and distant memories in six hauntingly written tales that focus on our relationships with our loved ones and ourselves over the Christmas period.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1882.

Travel under the streets of London with this lavishly illustrated exploration of abandoned, modified, and reused Underground tunnels, stations, and architecture.

Six stories about Christmas and winter from award-winning writer, Jordi Llavina. Llavina's stories conjure up ghosts from the past, old loves and distant memories in six hauntingly written tales that focus on our relationships with our loved ones and ourselves over the Christmas period.

'I recommend Hamilton at every opportunity, because he was such a wonderful writer and yet is rather under-read today. All his novels are terrific' Sarah Waters 'If you were looking to fly from Dickens to Martin Amis with just one overnight stop, then Hamilton is your man' Nick Hornby Patrick Hamilton's novels were the inspiration for Matthew Bourne's new dance theatre production, The Midnight Bell. The Midnight Bell, a pub on the Euston Road, is the pulse of this brilliant and compassionate trilogy. It is here where the barman, Bob, falls in love with Jenny, a West End prostitute who comes in off the streets for a gin and pep. Around his obsessions, and Ella the barmaid's secret love for him, swirls the sleazy life of London in the 1930s. This is a world where people emerge from cheap lodgings in Pimlico to pour out their passions, hopes and despair in pubs and bars - a world of twenty thousand streets full of cruelty and kindness, comedy and pathos, wasted dreams and lost desires.