For the bookish, London is a book. For criminals, a map of opportunities. For unpapered immigrants, it is a nest of skinned eyes; sanctioned gunmen ready to blow your head off as you run for a train. When the city of distorting mirrors revealed itself, through its districts and discriminations, I discovered more about London’s past as a reworking of my own submerged history.

Iain Sinclair (b.1943), London: A City of Disappearances

London is a world by itself. We daily discover in it more new countries, and surprising singularities, than in all the universe besides.

Thomas Brown (1663-1704), Amusements Serious and Comical, Calculated for the Meridian of Londont

London is a world in itself … It contains within itself all that is gorgeous in wealth, and all that is squalid in poverty; all that is illustrious in knowledge, and all that is debased in ignorance; all that is beautiful in virtue, and all that is revolting in crime. Adequately to chronicle and to describe such a city … is a task beyond any individual powers.

Charles Knight (1791-1873), The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge

The English mist is always at work like a subtle painter, and London is a vast canvas prepared for the mist to work on.

Arthur Symons (1865-1945), Cities and Sea-Coasts and Islands

To us London is a hundred different places. It is never easy to know exactly what we mean when we use the word. Indeed, to the question ” What is London? ” there is no satisfactory answer, unless it be that it is the original little walled city that still exists. It contains St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Mansion House, the Guildhall, the Bank of England and London Bridge. Thousands of people work there in the day-time, but no one sleeps there at night but the Lord Mayor of London and a few hundred caretakers. Yet the physical boundaries of this ancient city are still visible. It is still possible to walk along the line of the Roman Wall that centuries ago limited the size of London to one square mile.

H. V. Morton (1892-1979), In Search of London