Dickens’s London

By Peter Clark

Few novelists have written so intimately about a city in the way that Charles Dickens wrote about London. A near-photographic memory made his contact with the city indelible from a very young age and it remained his constant focus. Virginia Woolf maintained that, ‘we remodel our psychological geography when we read Dickens,’ as he produces ‘characters who exist not in detail, not accurately or exactly, but abundantly in a cluster of wild yet extraordinarily revealing remarks.’
But the ‘character’ he was drawn back to throughout his novels was London itself, all aspects of the capital from the coaching inns of his early years to the taverns and watermen of the Thames; these were the constant cityscapes of his life and work.
Based on five walks in central London, Peter Clark illuminates the settings of Dickens’s London, his life, his journalism and his fiction. He also explores ‘The First Suburbs’ (Camden Town, Chelsea, Greenwich, Hampstead, Highgate and Limehouse) as they feature in Dickens’s writing.
Peter Clark is a writer, translator and consultant. He worked for the British Council, has translated novels from Arabic and written on 19th-century Britain.

Jonathan Fryer about the official Dickens's London launch @ the bookHaus:
'The winter chill this evening was positively Dickensian, but there was much warmth, wine and laughter at that Chelsea New Curiosity Shop, the BookHaus, where author Peter Clark launched his latest work Dickens’s London under the benign direction of publisher Barbara Schwepcke.'
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'Clark’s knowledge is astoundingly broad and the book is woven with fascinating pieces of information...'
Read full review by Cordelia Lynn here

Watch Peter Clark on the Russian channel 'Kultura Rossiya' here

'...a great excuse to go walking in central London with a theme to follow.' - The bibliophilic blogger
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'...gives us asplendidly clear and illuminating view, not only of the streets and thearchitecture, but of the sounds, smells, and intense human activity that bothDickens and Clark enjoy about London.' - New Horizons
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'This is a small, delightful book, handsomely produced and shaped to fit an overcoat pocket, describing walks around parts of London associated with Dickens's life and writings.' - Literary Review
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'Mr. Clark, of course, takes you to the Charles Dickens Coffee House (26 Wellington St., Covent Garden); the infamous blacking factory where young Charles slaved with a colleague named Bob Fagin (corner of Bedford St. & Chandos Pl.); and around the corner to Rules, 35 Maiden Ln.,  London’s oldest restaurant (est. 1798) with its Dickens Room with playbills of great writer’s  productions and other memorabilia.'
- Everett Potter's Travel Review
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'Clark, an expert on Middle East studies and a notable translator of Arabic literature, packs years of learning and lore on Dickens into this slender book. Rather than prune much that is anecdotally a remove or two from the titular subject, the publishers have elected to diminish the font size of the text (quotes from Dickens appear in bold); many of you will need magnifiers to appreciate this rich and wondrously informative book. Begin it as an armchair traveler. Don’t be irked by the lack of conventional walking-guide graphics and details or by the small maps that don’t include street names. Should you end up in London with a yearning to follow Clark’s guidance, simply add a good London map to your kit. VERDICT Hidden here are riches beyond what more conventional London guides to Dickens cover. It’s like having your own bluff and delightfully expert British walking companion.' - Library Journal, 01/02/2012