'A book to explore London with for most of a lifetime' Spectator
In his classic book on London, H. V. Morton turns his traveller's intuition and his reporter's eye for detail to the city that had fascinated him since childhood.
In this remarkable, living picture of London past, present and timeless he explores the City and the Temple, Covent Garden, Soho and all the 'submerged villages beneath the flood of bricks and mortar', uncovering layer upon layer of London's history.
Morton follows the leads of imagination and investigation back and forth across the city, tracing unforgettable scenes: the Emperor Claudius leading his war elephants across the Thames; the terrible executions at the Tower; the city that Shakespeare knew, and that of Pepys, and Nelson and Queen Victoria, and also the shattered yet defiant city of the Blitz and the postwar London of 'ruins and hatless crowds'.
Morton's quest for the city's heart reveals how London's daily life is rooted in a past that is closer and more familiar than we might think, making In Search of London as informative, entertaining and rich in human colour today as when it was written fifty years ago.
'One of the world's great travel writers' The Times