London in Modern British Fiction
London has been at the center of nursery rhymes, poems, mysteries, historical fiction, and much more. Below you will find books that are set in London at some historical point in time, from the London of Chaucer in the 1300s to the contemporary London of the 2000s.
Belgravia by Julian Fellowes
Focusing on one of London's grandest postcodes, Belgrave Square, this novel revovles around two love stories that span two generations and crosses class boundaries. Rich in historical details of the early Victorian era, Fellowes portrays the lives of the upper class and the emerging industrial nouveau riche in an engaging and dramatic fashion.
Belgravia is being used for the June 1 British Literature Book Club at the Midtown Carnegie Branch Library at 1:30 PM. Join us for tea and biscuits to discuss it.
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Engaging with the racial, political, and social upheaval of the last half-century, this novel set in London during the 1970s to 2000s follows two families--the Joneses and the Iqbals, both outsiders from within the former British empire--as they make their way in modern England.
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Set in London just prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a successful, happily married neurosurgeon, Henry Perowne is drawn into a confrontation with Baxter, a small-time ruffian, who believes that the doctor has humiliated him. Baxter visits the Perowne home the evening of the altercation during a family reunion, leading Henry Perowne to deploy all his skills to keep his family alive.
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
Moving back through the 1940s, covering air raids, blacked-out streets, illicit partying, and sexual adventure, this novel tells the story of four Londoners--three women and a young man with a past--whose lives, and those of their friends and lovers, connect in tragedy, stunning surprise and exquisite turns, only to change irreversibly in the shadow of a grand historical event.
Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor
In 1666 London, as the Great Fire ravages the city, a semi-mummified body is discovered in the ashes of St. Paul’s cathedral, and James Marwood, the son of a disgraced printer, and reluctant government informer, is tasked with hunting down a killer across a devastated landscape.
A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger
In 1385 London, poet John Gower is asked by Geoffrey Chaucer to find an ancient manuscript that prophesies the end of England's kings, which draws him into a conspiracy that reaches from the king's court to London's slums and potentially implicates his own son.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
This novel follows Clarissa Dalloway on a June day in London as she takes care of last-minute arrangements for a party at her home that evening. Written in stream of consciousness style, Woolf gives an apparently ordinary day immense resonance and significance, infusing it with the elemental conflict between death and life.
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