By the time I had finished Imagined London, I had built a large castle around me. It was constructed completely of books. Whenever I left my desk, I would have to find my way through a passage I’d engineered between travel guides and literary criticism. In the process I broke the binding on a perfectly good Fodor’s, ruined two paperback editions of Dickens I left out in the rain, and dog-eared and underlined some of the greatest classics ever written.
I also had the time of my life, some of it spent in a small hotel in Mayfair sharing a suite—and several endless televised cricket matches—with Quindlen Krovatin, the writer and reader who is also my son.
First and foremost I must thank him for all the work he did on this book, and for the pleasure of his company. I couldn’t have been habitually lost in London with anyone more interesting.
I acquired Peter Ackroyd’s remarkable history of London only after I had begun work on this book. I ripped through it in two days, despite its massive size, because it is so intelligent and entertaining. It is probably impossible to write about London without owning a copy.
I could not imagine living life without the writers mentioned in these pages. In a world that seems increasingly senseless and graceless, they bring intelligence to bear on the human condition.