Nominated for Best Professional Book in the 2026 World Fantasy Awards.
From Kensington to the East End, under candlelight, gas lamp and then neon signs, London is both a bustling physical metropolis and a stirring psychic encounter. The most depraved depictions of London in fiction, film, poetry, television and theatre have irrevocably merged with the reality of its dark history, creating a phantasmagoria defined by murder, vice and the unnatural. In this panoptic look at the capital at its most eerie and macabre, Clive Bloom takes a tour of Gothic London's uncanny literature, arcane events and its infamous and imagined geographies.
From David Bowie to T S Eliot, Thomas de Quincey to Aleister Crowley, the prophetess Joanna Southcott to the 'ghosts' of Abba and the worlds of Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker, these are the figures that populate a city lost in fog and blind alleys, where the dead can be raised, the living sacrificed and the clandestine thrive. Suturing together fact and fantasy, London Uncanny presents the urban landscape of the capital as a space of wonder and madness, haunted by its past and haunting the present. Stalking through disease and degeneracy, death and murder, spiritualism, lunacy and the occult, Bloom crafts a singular, integrated concept of a London where dreams and nightmares meet.
- 223 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Dedication Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- 1 Edgar Poe in Starbucks
- 2 Fumbles in the Fog
- 3 Bowie with a Zebra
- 4 Chat Show Vampires
- 5 Shock and Awe in Anglican Land
- 6 Perverts in the Suburbs
- 7 Joanna Has a Baby, Ernest Offers a Potato
- 8 Cenobites in Dollis Hill: Intermezzo
- 9 Mysteries at the Bloomberg Building
- 10 ABBA Meets the Poltergeist
- 11 Crowley and the Beetle
- 12 Tom Eliot Gets the Hoo Hahs
- 13 Charles Dickens Does Not Eat Pies
- 14 Mary Barnes Paints Her Picture
- 15 Florence Farr Chats with a Mummy
- 16 Mabel Collins Entertains Guests
- 17 Mother Sawyer Puts a Spell on You
- 18 The Invisible Man Goes Shopping
- 19 Dr Zerffi’s Faustian Pact
- 20 Satan Takes a Stroll with the Bellman
- 21 Gilbert and George Have a Takeaway
- Endnotes
- Bibliography
- Index of London Locations
- General Index
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Yes, you can access London Uncanny by Clive Bloom in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & 19th Century History. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.