This book is the first of two which covers the history of the Great Eastern Railway and its predecessors from the first proposal for a railway in the eastern counties in 1811 for a railway from Islington to Wallasea Island and Mucking to its absorption into the London and North Eastern Railway under the 1923 Grouping of Railways. This volume covers the period from 1811 up to the formation of the Great Eastern Railway in 1862. The history is the first history of the GER since Cecil J. Allen’s history of the railway which was first published in 1955 and which has long been out of print. The book makes use of both previously published works on the GER and its predecessors, but also contemporary documents such as the Directors’ reports to shareholders of the Eastern Counties Railway, timetables, reports in local and national newspapers as well as extracts from selected peoples' diaries. Some of which were not easily available to Allen when he wrote his history of the GER. Incorporating these other sources means the book sheds new light on the Railway’s history. The book is intended for anyone who is either interested in railways and particularly the Great Eastern Railway and the railways of the east of England, but also for anyone who is interested in general in the history of that part of England.

Although a great deal has been published on the economic, social and engineering history of nineteenth-century railways, the work of historical geographers has been much less conspicuous. This overview by David Turnock goes a long way towards restoring the balance. It details every important aspect of the railway’s influence on spatial distribution of economic and social change, providing a full account of the nineteenth-century geography of the British Isles seen in the context of the railway. The book reviews and explains the shape of the developing railway network, beginning with the pre-steam railways and connections between existing road and water communications and the new rail lines. The author also discusses the impact of the railways on the patterns of industrial, urban and rural change throughout the century. Throughout, the historical geography of Ireland is treated in equal detail to that of Great Britain.