London in fiction

Many works of fiction are set in London, the capital of the United Kingdom.

Early fiction

* Daniel Defoe - "A Journal of the Plague Year" (1722), Moll Flanders (1722)

19th century fiction

* Many of Charles Dickens's most famous novels are at least partially set in London, including: "Oliver Twist" (1838), "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1840),"David Copperfield (1850) " "Bleak House" (1853), "Little Dorrit" (1857), "A Tale Of Two Cities" (1859), "Great Expectations" (1861), "Our Mutual Friend" (1865) "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" (1870).
* Jules Verne - "Around the World in Eighty Days" ( _fr. Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) (1872)
* Henry James - "The Princess Casamassima" (1886), "A London Life" (1888), "What Maisie Knew" (1897), "In the Cage" (1898)
* Robert Louis Stevenson - "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1886)
* Oscar Wilde - "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1891)
* H. G. Wells - "The Time Machine" (1895), "The Invisible Man" (1897), "The War of the Worlds" (1898)
* Somerset Maugham - "Liza of Lambeth" (1897)
* Bram Stoker's - "Dracula" (1897) comes to London in order to seduce Mina Harker.
* Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" stories. Holmes live at 221B Baker Street - a fictional address since Baker Street was much shorter in Victorian times. The Docklands area plays a large part in The Sign of Four.
* George Gissing's novels are almost exclusively set in London, including "The Nether World" (1889), "New Grub Street" (1891) and "The Odd Women" (1893).
* Irishman George Moore also wrote an "English" novel mainly set in London, "Esther Waters" (1894).

20th century fiction

* P. G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves and Wooster" novels (1919 onwards). Wooster lives mainly in London, and is a member of the Drones Club.
* Virginia Woolf - "Mrs Dalloway" (1925)
* T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land makes frequent reference to the Unreal City.
* Chesterton's allegorical works "The Man Who Was Thursday" and "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" both feature surreal depictions of London.
* Evelyn Waugh - Vile Bodies
* Pamela L. Travers' "Mary Poppins" (1934). Takes place on Cherry Tree Lane and at the Bank of England.
* Cameron McCabe - "The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor" (1937)
* Patrick Hamilton - "Hangover Square" (1941)
* Patrick White - "The Living and the Dead" (1941
* Elizabeth Bowen - "The Heat of the Day" (1949)
* George Orwell - "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1949)
* Agatha Christie - "Crooked House" (1949)
* Graham Greene - "The End of the Affair" (1951) & The Destructors (1954)
* Samuel Selvon - "Lonely Londoners" (1955)
* Colin MacInnes's "City of Spades" (1957), "Absolute Beginners" (1959) and "Mr Love and Justice" (1960)
* Iris Murdoch - "A Severed Head" (1961)
* Doris Lessing - "The Four-Gated City" (1969)
* Thomas Pynchon - "Gravity's Rainbow" (1973}
* Maureen Duffy - "Capital" (1975)
* Peter Ackroyd - "The Great Fire of London " (1982), "Hawksmoor" (1985), "The House of Doctor Dee" (1993), "Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem" (1994), "The Clerkenwell Tales" (2003), "The Lambs of London" (2004)
* Iain Banks - "Walking on Glass" (1985), "Dead Air" (2002)
* Martin Amis - "Money" (1984), "London Fields" (1989)
* Tom Clancy - "Patriot Games" (1987)
* Hanif Kureishi - "The Buddha of Suburbia" (1987) and "Gabriel's Gift" (2001)
* Salman Rushdie - "The Satanic Verses" (1989)
* Josephine Hart - "Damage" (1991)
* Bernice Rubens - "A Solitary Grief" (1991)
* Barbara Vine - "King Solomon's Carpet" (1991)
* Nick Hornby - "Fever Pitch" (1992), "High Fidelity" (1996), "About a Boy" (1998)
* Will Self - "Grey Area" (1996)
* Julian Barnes - "Metroland" (1997)
* Helen Fielding - "Bridget Jones' Diary" (1997)
* Anthony Frewin - "London Blues" (1997), set mainly in Soho at the time of the Profumo affair
* Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" (1997) is set partly in real London, and partly in an alternative "London Below".
* J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series (1997 onwards) features fictional London locations: the hidden Diagon Alley and a Platform 9 ³/4 at King's Cross.
* Ronald Wright - "A Scientific Romance" (1997) features detailed descriptions of a ruined London in the year 2500.
* William Boyd - "Armadillo" (1998)
* Alan Moore - "From Hell" (1999) A graphic novel about the murders of London serial killer Jack the Ripper.
* William Sutcliffe - "The Love Hexagon" (2000)

21st-Century fiction

* Mark Baxter and Paolo Hewitt - The Mumper (2007)
* Zadie Smith - "White Teeth" (2001)
* Miles Tredinnick - "Topless, " (2001)
* Bernadine Evaristo - "The Emperor's Babe" (2002)
* William Gibson - "Pattern Recognition" (2003)
* Zoë Heller - "Notes on a Scandal" (2003)
* Adam Thirlwell - "Politics" (2003)
* Neal Stephenson - "The Baroque Cycle" ("Quicksilver" (2003), "The Confusion" (2004), "The System of the World" (2004))
* Monica Ali - "Brick Lane" (2004)
* Ben Elton - "Past Mortem" (2004)
* A. N. Wilson - "My Name Is Legion" (2004)
* Anthony Horowitz - "Stormbreaker, Eagle Strike, Scorpia, Ark Angel"
* Ian McEwan - "Saturday" (2005)
* Kia Abdullah - Life, Love and Assimilation (17 May, 2006)
* Philip Reeve - "Mortal Engines" (2001), "A Darkling Plain (2006)"
* Dan Brown - "The Da Vinci Code"
* Owen Parry - Honor's Kingdom (2002)

Nursery rhymes

Several nursery rhymes mention places in London.
* London Bridge is obviously mentioned in "London Bridge is falling down".
* "Oranges and Lemons" mentions several London Churches.
* "Pop Goes the Weasel" one version refers to the Eagle pub on the City Road.