London in fiction
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Many works of fiction are set in London, the capital of the United Kingdom.
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Early fiction
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19th century fiction
- Many of Charles Dickens's most famous novels are at least partially set in London, including: Oliver Twist (1838), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840),David Copperfield (1850) Bleak House (1853), Little Dorrit (1857), A Tale Of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1861), Our Mutual Friend (1865) The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870).
- Jules Verne - Around the World in Eighty Days (French: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) (1872)
- Henry James - The Princess Casamassima (1886), A London Life (1888), What Maisie Knew (1897), In the Cage (1898)
- Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
- Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
- H. G. Wells - The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898)
- Somerset Maugham - Liza of Lambeth (1897)
- Bram Stoker's - Dracula (1897) comes to London in order to seduce Mina Harker.
- Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Holmes live at 221B Baker Street - a fictional address since Baker Street was much shorter in Victorian times. The Docklands area plays a large part in The Sign of Four.
- George Gissing's novels are almost exclusively set in London, including The Nether World (1889), New Grub Street (1891) and The Odd Women (1893).
- Irishman George Moore also wrote an "English" novel mainly set in London, Esther Waters (1894).
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20th century fiction
- P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster novels (1919 onwards). Wooster lives mainly in London, and is a member of the Drones Club.
- Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway (1925)
- T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land makes frequent reference to the Unreal City.
- Chesterton's allegorical works The Man Who Was Thursday and The Napoleon of Notting Hill both feature surreal depictions of London.
- Evelyn Waugh - Vile Bodies
- Pamela L. Travers' Mary Poppins (1934). Takes place on Cherry Tree Lane and at the Bank of England.
- Cameron McCabe - The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor (1937)
- Patrick Hamilton - Hangover Square (1941)
- Patrick White - The Living and the Dead ([[1941]
- Elizabeth Bowen - The Heat of the Day (1949)
- George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
- Agatha Christie - Crooked House (1949)
- Graham Greene - The End of the Affair (1951) & The Destructors (1954)
- Samuel Selvon - Lonely Londoners (1955)
- Colin MacInnes's City of Spades (1957), Absolute Beginners (1959) and Mr Love and Justice (1960)
- Iris Murdoch - A Severed Head (1961)
- Doris Lessing - The Four-Gated City (1969)
- Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow (1973}
- Maureen Duffy - Capital (1975)
- Peter Ackroyd - The Great Fire of London (1982), Hawksmoor (1985), The House of Doctor Dee (1993), Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994), The Clerkenwell Tales (2003), The Lambs of London (2004)
- Iain Banks - Walking on Glass (1985), Dead Air (2002)
- Martin Amis - Money (1984), London Fields (1989)
- Tom Clancy - Patriot Games (1987)
- Hanif Kureishi - The Buddha of Suburbia (1987) and Gabriel's Gift (2001)
- Salman Rushdie - The Satanic Verses (1989)
- Josephine Hart - Damage (1991)
- Bernice Rubens - A Solitary Grief (1991)
- Barbara Vine - King Solomon's Carpet (1991)
- Nick Hornby - Fever Pitch (1992), High Fidelity (1996), About a Boy (1998)
- Will Self - Grey Area (1996)
- Julian Barnes - Metroland (1997)
- Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones' Diary (1997)
- Anthony Frewin - London Blues (1997), set mainly in Soho at the time of the Profumo affair
- Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (1997) is set partly in real London, and partly in an alternative "London Below".
- J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series (1997 onwards) features fictional London locations: the hidden Diagon Alley and a Platform 9 ³/4 at King's Cross.
- Ronald Wright - A Scientific Romance (1997) features detailed descriptions of a ruined London in the year 2500.
- William Boyd - Armadillo (1998)
- Alan Moore - From Hell (1999) A graphic novel about the murders of London serial killer Jack the Ripper.
- William Sutcliffe - The Love Hexagon (2000)
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21st-Century fiction
- Mark Baxter and Paolo Hewitt - The Mumper (2007)
- Zadie Smith - White Teeth (2001)
- Miles Tredinnick - Topless, (2001)
- Bernadine Evaristo - The Emperor's Babe (2002)
- William Gibson - Pattern Recognition (2003)
- Zoë Heller - Notes on a Scandal (2003)
- Adam Thirlwell - Politics (2003)
- Neal Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver (2003), The Confusion (2004), The System of the World (2004))
- Monica Ali - Brick Lane (2004)
- Ben Elton - Past Mortem (2004)
- A. N. Wilson - My Name Is Legion (2004)
- Anthony Horowitz - Stormbreaker, Eagle Strike, Scorpia, Ark Angel
- Ian McEwan - Saturday (2005)
- Kia Abdullah - Life, Love and Assimilation (17 May, 2006)
- Philip Reeve - Mortal Engines (2001), A Darkling Plain (2006)
- Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code
- Owen Parry - Honor's Kingdom (2002)
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Nursery rhymes
Several nursery rhymes mention places in London.
- London Bridge is obviously mentioned in London Bridge is falling down.
- Oranges and Lemons mentions several London Churches.
- Pop Goes the Weasel one version refers to the Eagle pub on the City Road.
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