"Ackroyd is the most effortless guide. . . . This is much more than history: it is a tapestry of inspiration and love." --The Observer

"An erudite labour of love, a fan-letter to a fabulous city. . . . As exuberant, energetic and alarming as the city itself." --Independent on Sunday

"A fat and filling feast: pretty much everything of interest about the capital is crammed into the eight-hundred pages."--The Times

"If London had the ability to choose its biographer it undoubtedly would tap Peter Ackroyd."--Vanity Fair

"A wonderful book, a treasure of information and anecdote about one of the world's great cities, a book to be taken up again and again for the pleasures that lie within."--Chicago Tribune

"A book to match its subject . . . one gratefully rediscovers that urban unreality, the city of romance and mystery as well as the one of shops, pubs, and thoroughfares." --The Washington Post