WHEN PREFACE M6 THEN exploring the highways and byways of London I have frequently felt the need of an A B C of the City and the West End which would refresh my memory on escaped facts of history and topography. I imagined, however, that such a book, if really useful, would be too big for a man to carry, and it is one of life's literary ironies that it has been my task to write it in a form small enough to go into, without deforming, the pocket. In this book I have attempted to trace the rise and development of London through the usual historic periods, and I have followed this bird's-eye survey with an alphabetical list of the chief buildings, streets, historic sites, and with some brief account of their literary, or other, associations. I am conscious, of course, that this A B C might be ten times its size and still be incomplete. I hope the errors are few. I am indebted, as any writer on London must be, to most of those who have made this city a study from John Stow down to Sir Walter Besant, Mr. H. B. Wheatley and Sir Laurence Gomme. I am under a debt of gratitude to Sir William Soulsby, the distinguished secretary to so many Lord Mayors of London, for information on certain points of civic procedure and custom, and to my friend Mr. G. F. Lawrence, of the London Museum, V M309260 |