We cheered the King and the Queen on the balcony and then walked miles through the streets. I remember lines of unknown people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, all of us just swept along on a tide of happiness and relief. I think it was one of the most memorable nights of my life.

Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022), Speaking to the BBC about joining street celebrations for VE Day in London in May 1945

The lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet Street; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and customers, coaches, wagons, playhouses; all the bustle and wickedness round about Covent Garden; the very women of the town; the watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles; life awake, if you awake, at all hours of the night; . . . I often shed tears in the motley Strand from fullness of joy at so much life.

Charles Lamb (1779-1834)

I have seen the West End, the parks, the fine squares; but I love the City far better . . . The City is getting its living – the West End but enjoying its pleasure. At the West End you may be amused; but in the City you are deeply excited.

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1856), Villette

Like the majority of London people, she occupied a house of which the rent absurdly exceeded the due proportion of her income, a pleasant foible turned to such good account by London landlords.

George Gissing (1857-1903)

London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow / At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore / Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more. / Yet in its depths what treasures!

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)