Excerpt from London's Story The object of this small book is to explain London as a living city. People often say that London is so difficult to understand, and that its government is in such a muddle that no ordinary person can ever hope to know much about it. That is not true. London is quite simple, if people will only look at it in the right way. The only real excuse for those who do not understand London is that London has never been properly explained to them. In this book I have tried to explain London so that every one can understand it - that is, every one who wants to; for there are plenty of people who live and move about in London without ever wondering about its story, its government or its greatness. But I feel sure that most people are interested in the things around them. They like to be told about their Lord Mayor, their Borough Councils, their parks, tramcars and drain-pipes, their water supply and their electricity. For everything has its story. And London itself, as the biggest city in the world, has a story that is really full of interest. When that story is understood, everything in London becomes clear. This book is, I hope, the forerunner of a larger one. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Story of London Here can be no doubt that our interest in the dim past is increased the more we are able to read into the dry documents before us the human character of the actors. As long as these actors are only names to us we seem to be walking in a world Of shadows, but when we can realise them as beings like ourselves with the same feelings and aspirations, although governed by other conditions Of life, all is changed, and we take the keenest interest in attempting to understand circum stances so different from those under which we live. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Stories of the City of London: Retold for Youthful Readers Stories either has been or might be made the subject of a separate instructive volume; but elaborations of History, with all their wide spread ramifications, are only really acceptable to the mature and already well-informed reader. To the young there must ever be a gradual acquirement of all sorts of knowledge, and those histories which are most diffuse, and those biographies which are most ample, do not always make the deepest impression on youthful minds. Remembering this, my aim has been to retell these true stories graphically, yet succinctly. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

London has the greatest literary tradition of any city in the world. Its roll call of storytellers includes cultural giants like Shakespeare, Defoe, and Dickens, and an innumerable host of writers of all sorts who sought to capture the essence of the place. Acclaimed historian Jerry White has collected some twenty-six stories to illustrate the extraordinary diversity of both London life and writing over the past four centuries, from Shakespeare’s day to the present. These are stories of fact and fiction and occasionally something in between, some from well-known voices and others practically unknown. Here are dramatic views of such iconic events as the plague, the Great Fire of London, and the Blitz, but also William Thackeray’s account of going to see a man hanged, Thomas De Quincey’s friendship with a teenaged prostitute, and Doris Lessing’s defense of the Underground. This literary London encompasses the famous Baker Street residence of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and the bombed-out moonscape of Elizabeth Bowen’s wartime streets, Charles Dicken’s treacherous River Thames and Frederick Treves’s tragic Elephant Man. Graham Greene, Jean Rhys, Muriel Spark, and Hanif Kureishi are among the many great writers who give us their varied Londons here, revealing a city of boundless wealth and ragged squalor, of moving tragedy and riotous joy.

A scarce book about the terrible experiences of the last survivor of the Evans-Sontag band of train robbers. The author helped Sontag escape jail and became a hunted man with him." The foreword by Arizona Governor George W.P. Hunt and the introduction by Dr. Raymond S. Ward, Montclair, New Jersey are quite revealing about the torture and sufferings of the author while imprisoned at San Quentin, California. Jack London held the author in high regard as he credited Morrell with helping him develop his masterpiece THE STAR ROVER--