Forgotten London: Exploring the Hidden Life of the City

In this evocative survey, novelist and critic Ackroyd (The English Soul) explores London street life from 1837 to 1839, the period of Britain’s rise as a world superpower. He gracefully plots the city’s evolution from a collection of individual districts—each with its own style, shops, and street markets—to a more unified whole, along the way bringing to vivid life its smells (mostly foul), the changing color of its fog (from bottle-green to a rich lurid brown), the feel of its grit upon one’s skin, and its various sounds, from hawkers touting their wares to street performers with dancing dogs. Highlighting ways in which British society developed over this period, he notes that popular family entertainment evolved from public hangings to talking pictures; that the tea shop—one of the most emblematic of British institutions—emerged when women, newly permitted to venture outdoors unaccompanied, were in need of establishments to frequent; and that street jargon went from cockney rhyming slang to colorful flapper expressions like “the bee’s knees” (the flappers’ lesser known contributions to slang include the pejoratives “Victorian,” “stuffy,” and “junk”; alas, their term for boring men, “pillow cases,” has fallen out of favor). The fact-studded text is liberally augmented by paintings, magazine illustrations, photographs, and advertisements. It makes for an exceptionally detailed look at the rapid march of modernization. (Oct.)