“Like its predecessors, it is a work framed in a style at once popular and erudite, embracing a historical sketch of each reign included, and supplementary chapters on the commercial and social conditions of the period. No book could be suited better than this is to occupy an honoured place on the family bookshelf.”—Globe.
“Each volume that appears not merely reveals more vividly the magnitude of the undertaking, but the skill and knowledge, the historic imagination, and the picturesque sensibility of the writer. Two volumes were wisely devoted to Mediæval London. The first set before us the historical and social aspects of the capital, and did so with the charm that belongs to a living picture; the second volume, which is now published, is also marked by movement and colour, and in its pages are described the ecclesiastical life of the community and the great religious houses which flourished long before any man had dreamed of such a movement as the Reformation.”—Standard.
“It is unquestionably one of the most valuable of the books that have been published this year. Every ‘London’ collector who can afford to do so, will, of course, buy it; but it is deserving of a far wider circle of readers, and it is to be hoped that it will be placed promptly upon the lists of every public library in the land.”—The Record.
“It is a mine of wealth to the student, a joy to the antiquary, and a kaleidoscopic picture of times that were full of moving and changing events that rendered the history of London, more than at any other period, the history of the nation that was in the making.”—Pall Mall Gazette.
“Written in the charming and fascinating style of which the author was a master. It is a mine of curious and interesting information for the historical student. It is a model of lucid arrangement, and presents a living and moving picture of days long gone by.”—Aberdeen Free Press.
“For the general reader, this work, for its liveliness and variety, will do what Chaucer and Langland do for the serious student of the Middle Ages.”—Tribune.
“This work fascinates me more than anything I have ever done.”—WALTER BESANT.
Chips from Sir Walter Besant’s “Magnum Opus.”
THE FASCINATION OF LONDON
Edited by Sir WALTER BESANT