The Chronicles of London, Andrew Saint and Gillian Darley. Published by George Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd., London, 1994. First Edition. 4to. 12” x 9¼”., 320 pp. with monochrome and colour illustrations, maps and archive photographs throughout. Grey cloth covers, gilt titles and author lettering to the spine, archive illustrated end papers. In fine, unread condition; unclipped jacket has the lightest of shelf wear.
The Chronicles of London celebrates two vibrant millennia by juxtaposing a narrative history with eclectic contemporary accounts. The voices of the writers, visitors and ordinary citizens in this book convey the commotion of history. Drawn from a wide range of sources, this is a mixture of letters, diaries, journals, newspaper reports, despatches, contemporary chronicles, annals and government papers illustrated with maps, period engravings, paintings and photographs. From Tacitus on Boudicca, a decree forbidding football in 1409, the inquest into Marlowe’s murky death in Deptford in 1593, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre posing as average tourists, to Richard Crossman describing Churchill lying in state in 1965, here is a splendid history of a magnificent city.
