PRESS OPINIONS
“Turn where you will in his pages, you get some interesting glimpse which opens up the past and illumines the present.”—The Contemporary Review.
“A handsome and very interesting book is the result, for which the curious reader and the student will alike be grateful.... Gives an admirable impression of the times.”—The Spectator.
“It is excellently planned, and very ably and agreeably executed.... The chief charm of this work is the pleasantness of the style in which it is written—easy, clear, and individual. To the accuracy of the ideal historian Sir Walter added the picturesqueness of the popular novelist.”—The Globe.
“A book full of entertainment and instruction for modern Londoners.”—The Daily Mail.
“To praise this book were superfluous. Sir Walter was ideally suited for the task which he set himself. He was an antiquarian, but not a Dryasdust; he had the topographical sense, but he spares us measurements; he was pleasantly discursive; if he moralised he was never tedious; he had the novelist’s eye for the romantic; above all, he loved and reverenced London. Though only a Londoner by adoption, he bestowed upon the capital a more than filial regard. Besant is the nineteenth-century Stow, and something more.... This remarkable volume.... It is a monument of faithful and careful research.”—The Daily Telegraph.
“Will be of the utmost value to every student of the life and history of London.”—The Standard.
“This handsome and really valuable volume.”—The Guardian.
“As a general survey of the eighteenth century this work has no rival.”—Glasgow Herald.
“It is indeed a living and fascinating book.”—The Yorkshire Post.