London in fiction

Many notable works of fiction are set in London, the capital city of England and of the United Kingdom. The following is a selection; there are too many such fictional works for it to be possible to compile a complete list.

William Blake's poem London, which explores the meaning of the city. This image is a digital repercussion of his hand-painted 1826 print from Copy AA of Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The item is currently in the Collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England.

Folklore

• Dick Whittington and His Cat (c. 1354–1423)

Early fiction

• Geoffrey Chaucer — The Canterbury Tales (late 14th century)
• Daniel Defoe — A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), Moll Flanders (1722)

19th century fiction

• Many of Charles Dickens' most famous novels are at least partially set in London; including: Oliver Twist (1838), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1850), Bleak House (1853), Little Dorrit (1857), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1861), Our Mutual Friend (1865), and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)
• William Makepeace Thackeray — Vanity Fair (1847)
• Mark Twain — The Prince and the Pauper (1881)
• Henry James — The Princess Casamassima (1886), A London Life (1888), What Maisi e Knew (1897), In the Cage (1898)
• Oscar Wilde — The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
• H. G. Wells — The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898)

20th century fiction

• G. K. Chesterton — his allegorical works The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) and The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) both feature surreal depictions of London
• Joseph Conrad — The Secret Agent (1907)
• J. M. Barrie — Peter and Wendy (1904–1911)
• Marie Belloc Lowndes — The Lodger (1913)
• D. H. Lawrence — Sons and Lovers (1913)
• P. G. Wodehouse — in his Jeeves and Wooster novels (1919 onwards), Wooster lives mainly in London, and is a member of the Drones Club
• T. S. Eliot — his long poem The Waste Land (1922) makes frequent reference to the Unreal City
• Virginia Woolf — Mrs Dalloway (1925)
• Evelyn Waugh — Vile Bodies (1930)
• Aldous Huxley — Brave New World (1932)
• P. L. Travers — Mary Poppins (1934) Takes place on Cherry Tree Lane and at the Bank of England
• Patrick Hamilton — 20,000 Streets Under the Sky (1935)
• George Orwell — Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
• Cameron McCabe — The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor (1937)
• T. H. White — The Sword in the Stone (1938)
• Patrick Hamilton — Hangover Square (1941)
• Patrick White — The Living and the Dead (1941)
• Norman Collins — London Belongs to Me (1945)
• Elizabeth Bowen — The Heat of the Day (1949)
• Agatha Christie — Crooked House (1949)
• John Wyndham — The Day of the Triffids (1951)
• Graham Greene — The End of the Affair (1951), The Destructors (1954)
• Dodie Smith — The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956)
• Michael Bond — A Bear Called Paddington (1958)
• Colin MacInnes — Absolute Beginners (1959), Mr Love and Justice (1960)
• Iris Murdoch — A Severed Head (1961)
• Muriel Spark — The Girls of Slender Means (1963)
• Doris Lessing — The Four-Gated City (1969)
• Michael Moorcock — the Jerry Cornelius stories (from 1969): Mother London (1988), King of the City (2000)
• Thomas Pynchon — Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
• Maureen Duffy — Capital: a Fiction (1975)
• Julian Barnes — Metroland (1980)
• Peter Ackroyd — The Great Fire of London (1982), Hawksmoor (1985), English Music (1992), The House of Doctor Dee (1993), Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994)
• Alan Moore — V for Vendetta (1982 – 1989), From Hell (1989–1996)
• Martin Amis — Money (1984), London Fields (1989)
• Iain Banks — Walking on Glass (1985)
• Tom Clancy — Patriot Games (1987)
• Hanif Kureishi — The Buddha of Suburbia (1987)
• Vertigo (DC Comics) — Hellblazer (1988–2013)
• 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 - A Fan's Life (1992), High Fidelity (1995), About a Boy (1998)
• Will Self — Grey Area (1994)
• Helen Fielding — Bridget Jones's Diary (1996)
• Neil Gaiman — Neverwhere (1996) is set partly in real London, and partly in an alternative 'London Below'
• Anthony Frewin — London Blues (1997), is set mainly in Soho at the time of the Profumo affair
• Ian McEwan — Enduring Love (1997)
• J. K. Rowling — Harry Potter series (1997–2007) features fictional London locations: the hidden Diagon Alley, and Platform 9+3⁄4 at King's Cross
• Kouta Hirano — Hellsing manga series (1997–2009) casts London as the story's main setting
• William Boyd — Armadillo (1998)

21st century fiction

• Hanif Kureishi — Gabriel's Gift (2001)
• John Lanchester — Mr Phillips (2001), Capital (2012)
• Bernard Cornwell — Gallows Thief (2001)
• Philip Reeve — Mortal Engines (2001), A Darkling Plain (2006), Fever Crumb (2009)
• Zadie Smith — White Teeth (2000), NW (2012)
• Miles Tredinnick — Topless, (2001)
• Iain Banks — Dead Air (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)
• Nick Hornby — A Long Way Down (2005)
• Ian McEwan — Saturday (2005)
• Will Self — The Book of Dave (2006)
• Charles Finch — A Beautiful Blue Death (2007), The September Society (2008), The Fleet Street Murders (2009), A Stranger in Mayfair (2010)
• Mary Novik — Conceit (2007)
• Charlie Fletcher — The Stoneheart (2008)
• Anthony Horowitz — Stormbreaker, Eagle Strike, Scorpia, Ark Angel (2008)
• Ruth Rendell — Portobello (2008)
• Audrey Niffenegger — Her Fearful Symmetry (2009)
• DC Comics — Wonder Woman is based in London following The New 52 relaunch of her ongoing series (2011–present)
• Jared Anthony Patterson — My Journey through the Gay Underground of London: Memoir of a Tottenham Boy (2011)
• Ben Aaronovitch — Rivers of London (2011), Moon Over Soho (2011), Whispers Under Ground (2012), Broken Homes (2013) The Hanging Tree (2016) The Furthest Station (2017)
• Mike Bartlett — 13 (2011)
• Daniel O'Malley — The Rook (2012)
• Robert Galbraith — The Cuckoo's Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014) Career of Evil (2015) Lethal White (TBC)
• Anakana Schofield — Martin John (2016)
• Robert J. Sherman — Bumblescratch (2016)
• John Roman Baker — Time of Obsessions (2017)
• Cassandra Clare — The Clockwork Angel (2010), The Clockwork Prince (2011), The Clockwork Princess (2013)
• Jonathan Stroud⁣ — ⁣The Screaming Staircase (2013), The Whispering Skull (2014), The Hollow Boy (2015), The Creeping Shadow (2016), The Empty Grave (2017)
• Deborah Hewitt — The Nightjar (2019)
• Garth Nix — The Left-Handed Booksellers of London (2020)

Nursery rhymes

Several nursery rhymes mention places in London.

• London Bridge is 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.

External links

• London Fictions — looks at commanding London novels from Defoe to the present day