Tag: London

Book Review – ‘On the Trail of Jack the Ripper’ by Richard Charles Cobb

~ Helene Harrison ~ Leave a comment

I’ve had a fascination with the Jack the Ripper mystery for years. Well, unsolved mysteries generally which started with the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower, and the death of Amy Robsart. But the Jack the Ripper mystery is a lot gorier and more disturbing.

This book discusses the five canonical victims in detail, especially the locations connected with each murder and how they relate to London as it is now. There are lots of helpful maps plotting London as it was in 1888 over the street layout today. The sad thing is that many of the streets and locations have now been lost, many in the last decade or two with building works. I went on a Jack the Ripper tour in Whitechapel last year with a friend and it’s amazing how little actually remains, so those locations that do remain are more significant in a way.

Richard Charles Cobb discusses each of the canonical murders, but also discusses the other Whitechapel murders not always considered to be his work (there were 11 in total in the files). It was really interesting to read some of the newspaper articles, the alleged writing of the Ripper, and police reports and memorandum – words spoken or written at the time. Cobb doesn’t really go into suspects, so I think that might be what I’ll look for in my next book on the Jack the Ripper mystery. I want to know more.

Be aware if you buy this book that there are images of the dead women; including the wounds inflicted on the last canonical victim, which are just horrifying. Some authors I know choose not to show the images in their books or put them in a spread in the middle so you can just jump past them, but these images are set into the text so just a trigger warning, though I imagine if you’re reading a book on Jack the Ripper you might be aware of the images!

Book Review – ‘The Architecture Lover’s Guide to London’ by Sian Lye

~ Helene Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to Pen and Sword for the chance to read and review this book.

I’m really enjoying these books, having first read ‘The Book Lover’s Guide to London’. They are really handy and engaging little guides to London, and I plan to take both on my next trip down there!

This one focuses on the buildings and architecture of London and how it’s developed over time, starting with Roman Londinium, through Medieval, Tudor and Stuart London, into the Georgian and Victorian periods, and finishing in the present day. This includes locations like the Tower of London, Westminster Palace, 10 Downing Street, the British Museum, and the Shard, with everything in between.

It’s structured in chronological order, so it is easy to see the development of the city from the earliest buildings to the newest ones, and some revisited within the book as they changed or were destroyed and rebuilt in a later period. As someone who didn’t really know much about the general architecture of London – I’ve visited places like the Tower of London, Westminster, Windsor, and Hampton Court as part of my love of the Tudors but never really explored the wider development of the city – this was a really handy introduction and there are several places I would like to know more about.

It has an easy-to-follow, clear and concise layout, but I do wish there was just a bit more information, and a bibliography of where you can go for further reading and where the author got their information.

If you’re planning on doing a sightseeing tour of London this little book will give you information you might not get from the London tour guides, and you can strike out on your own quite easily to explore some of the most iconic buildings in London and discover the history of one of the oldest cities in the UK, and the men and women behind some of the architecture as well.

Book Review – ‘On the Trail of Sherlock Holmes’ by Stephen Browning

~ Helene Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to Pen and Sword for giving me a copy of this to review.

I’ve only read the Sherlock Holmes novels once, but I loved them, and this book certainly wants to make me read them again. I’m eyeing up the beautiful Wordsworth editions I have to admit. I’ve been to London quite a few times, where many of the Sherlock Holmes stories are set, but I didn’t think about the places I visited and how they tied into the stories, nor did I realise that Sherlock visited quite so many familiar places!

This book is set out as a series of walks around London, taking in locations frequented by Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle as well. It gives you the backstory to Conan Doyle and how he came to write the books. Sherlock Holmes is such an iconic character in literature and it’s really interesting to find out which places were actually real, and which were fictitious, with Conan Doyle mixing up the two seamlessly.

I don’t know what I expected from this book; I guess I thought that there wouldn’t be quite as much detail linking the London we know today with stories based in Victorian London. Browning tells you exactly where to go and what was there in the days of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle, and there is a surprising amount that doesn’t really seem to have changed.

I loved the appendices at the back as well, with lists of the stories in chronological order, lists of the actors who have played Sherlock Holmes on screen and a miscellany. A must have for any fan of Sherlock Holmes.

Chapters:

  1. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Creation of His ‘most notorious character’, Sherlock Holmes
  2. London: Where it all began – a walk in Baker Street and immediate area
  3. London: A Walk along Northumberland Avenue, up the Strand, Fleet Street and on to St Paul’s Cathedral
  4. London: Walking along Oxford Street, Regent Street, around Piccadilly Circus and into Haymarket
  5. London: Around Tottenham Court Road and into Holborn and Covent Garden
  6. London: At the centre of Government – a walk in Westminster and Victoria
  7. London: Trafalgar Square, Pall Mall and Mayfair
  8. London: A Walk around the City and East End
  9. Walks and Trips elsewhere … in London; in the UK as a Whole
  10. On the Trail of Sherlock Holmes

Book Review – ‘The Book Lover’s Guide to London’ by Sarah Milne

~ Helene Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to Pen and Sword for giving me a copy of this to review.

Anyone who follows me on Instagram @tudorblogger would have seen this morning that I was asked to take part in the InstaTour for this book, and I was thrilled to be asked!

I really loved this book, it’s a little gem full of titbits about authors like Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens, and George Orwell, some of the greats of literary history, and their connections to London. It discusses not only the connections of the authors to London, but their characters as well.

The book divides London down into sections including south, north, west, east, and central, and then into areas inside that including Bridewell, Clerkenwell, Holborn, Kensington, and Whitechapel. There are also some lovely images demonstrating the places in and around London, including blue plaques marking the places where famous writers lived or worked.

There is a very handy list in the back of the book of all of the books mentioned in the main text, classics and modern texts listed alphabetically by author. Reading this book has certainly expanded by want to read list; and that’s already miles long.

It’s amazing all the places and things that you can walk past in London without realising their significance but now I certainly won’t miss any of the bookish spots in London when I’m wandering around with the help of this guide. It’s a little pocket gem!

Jack the Ripper Walking Tour

~ Helene Harrison ~ Leave a comment

While I was in London with a friend back in November we went on a Jack the Ripper walking tour in Whitechapel. It’s something that had been on my bucket list for a while, and I was so excited when I finally got to do it. They’re obviously popular as we saw three other tours when we were out as well! Jack the Ripper is one of those enduring historical mysteries that is still fascinating today, and there is such a long list of suspects of who might have done it, including royalty, artists, Polish Jews, and authors. The fact that the murders were never solved gives infinite scope for people to come up with their own suspect.

It was so interesting to see the places where the murders took place, even if they have changed a lot in the over a hundred years since they happened. It really gives a sense of place and atmosphere, and the layout of the streets is interesting to understand how the murderer was able to get away and avoid the police on the streets.

Jack the Ripper killed five women between August and November 1888, possibly more but five are accepted as canonical victims – Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols on 31st August, Annie Chapman on 8th September, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes on 30th September, and Mary Jane Kelly on 9th November. Although I think that a prior victim in early August 1888 was actually a Ripper victim as well – Martha Tabram.

The Ripper walking tour took in Osbourne Street, Hanbury Street, the Ten Bells pub, Goulston Street, Dorset Street, and Mitre Square. Osbourne Street was the location of the murder of Emma Smith, which happened before that of Martha Tabram and isn’t generally considered to be a Ripper murder but is included in the Whitechapel murder sequence. Hanbury Street was the location of the murder of Annie Chapman, although the exact building no longer survives. The Ten Bells pub still survives today although it did go through a period in the 1980s of being renamed the Jack the Ripper pub. Goulston Street was the location of the infamous graffiti which was left after the murder of Catherine Eddowes, and where part of her apron was dropped after the murderer wiped his knife on it. Dorset Street was the location of the murder of the Ripper’s final canonical victim, Mary Jane Kelly. Mitre Square was the location of the fourth murder, the second of the double night; that of Catherine Eddowes.

Although many of these locations have drastically changed since the 1880s, the atmosphere of the East End is still there and you can still get a sense of what it would have been like for these women living on the streets or in boarding houses, packed together. George Yard, where Elizabeth Stride was murdered, is now Gunthorpe Street. Bucks Row, where Polly Nichols was murdered, is now Durward Street.

Big thanks to our tour guide, Angie, who was so knowledgeable and such an engaging person to tell this gruesome tale. Visit the website to book a tour of your own if you’re ever in London!

Jack The Ripper Tour – The Original London Terror Walk (jack-the-ripper-tour.com)

Book Review – ‘Anne Boleyn in London’ by Lissa Chapman

~ Helene Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Romantic victim? Ruthless other woman? Innocent pawn? Religious reformer? Fool, flirt and adulteress? Politician? Witch? During her life, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s ill-fated second queen, was internationally famous – or notorious; today, she still attracts passionate adherents and furious detractors. It was in London that most of the drama of Anne Boleyn’s life and death was played out – most famously, in the Tower of London, the scene of her coronation celebrations, of her trial and execution, and where her body lies buried. Londoners, like everyone else, clearly had strong feelings about her, and in her few years as a public figure Anne Boleyn was influential as a patron of the arts and of French taste, as the centre of a religious and intellectual circle, and for her purchasing power, both directly and as a leader of fashion. It was primarily to London, beyond the immediate circle of the court, that her carefully ‘spun’ image as queen was directed during the public celebrations surrounding her coronation. [Description from Waterstones]

Thanks to Pen & Sword for the chance to read and review this book.

I did enjoy this book, and I thought that it was quite well-written and engaging. Chapman has a clear and concise tone and way of writing, which makes it easy to read and understand. Anne Boleyn was a divisive figure and this book looks at the positive and negative sides of her, without really choosing a side to fall on. It purports to examine Anne’s rise, queenship and fall through the eyes of the places she stayed in London. There are also sections on Anne’s coronation in 1533, London in general, and court in London.

I wouldn’t call this book so much a look at Anne Boleyn in London, but more a historical biography of Anne Boleyn, focused on her time in London from 1522 and her first court appearance to her death in 1536. I was expecting more about Anne’s involvement in different London locations like Whitehall, Durham House, Westminster, Hampton Court, Hatfield, Eltham, Greenwich and Richmond, but this part I felt was a little lacking. Perhaps the title of the book is a little misleading.

It has obviously been well-researched and there is plenty of reference to the primary sources, as well as to how reliable they may be, and cross-referencing different sources. There is discussion of bias and a look at different points of view about the same events, for example, ambassadors from Italy, the Papal courts, France and Spain. There is a short look at Anne’s earlier life, but it more focused on what we know about her later life.

There is a great selection of images in the centre of the book, varying from photos of places, to sketches, portraits of important people, and artefacts. The captions are all detailed and dated as far as they can be. It is a good selection from across Anne’s life and relates to what is talked about in the text itself. The cover image is also of great interest – it’s a photo of a recreation of a medal from 1534 by Lucy Churchill, one of the only definite images of Anne Boleyn.

This book is worth a read for the historical scholarship, but if you’re expecting a traipse through the London locations that Anne knew, then you might be a little disappointed. Nevertheless, an interesting and well-written biography of Anne Boleyn.

Chapters:

  1. A Walk Through London 1522
  2. ‘Your very humble obedient daughter’ 1501-22
  3. Queen in Waiting 1522-33
  4. The White Falcon Crowned 1533
  5. Earthly Powers: London
  6. Earthly Powers: Court
  7. Anne the Queen 1533-6
  8. Fall 1536
  9. Ever After