It’s a sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.

Ben Aaronovitch (b.1964), Moon Over Soho

The dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways, and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful re-invasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer’s eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), The Carew Murder Case

The tide of luxury has swept all the inhabitants from the open country – The poorest squire, as well as the richest peer, must have his house in town . . . The plough-boys, cow-herds, and lower hinds . . . swarm up to London, in hopes of getting into service, where they can live luxuriously and wear fine clothes, without being obliged to work; for idleness is natural to man.

Tobias Smollett (1721-1771), The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

The two only inconveniences of London are the excessive drinking of some foolish people, and the frequent fires.

William Fitzstephen (d.1191)

We saw the fire grow; and, as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame . . . It made me weep to see it.

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), Diary 2nd September 1666