In this brilliant work of literary investigation Matthew Beaumont shines a light on the
shadowy perambulations of poets novelists and thinkers: the fetid treacherous streets known
to Chaucer and Shakespeare William Blake and his ecstatic peregrinations the feverish
ramblings of opium addict Thomas De Quincey and among the lamp-lit literary throng the
supreme nightwalker Charles Dickens. We discover how the nocturnal city has inspired some and
served as a balm or narcotic to others. In each case the city is revealed as a place divided
between work and pleasure the affluent and the indigent where the entitled and the desperate
rub shoulders.
