Yes… happily he doesn’t list 20,000 streets. That might be good actually, coupled with Hangover Square which I hugely enjoyed 20 years ago but have largely forgotten.
Oh my! Thank you, Matt, for this. Ive recently been reading Orlando (an ‘imagining’ staged at the Southbank started me off). We ‘did’ Flush at school 60 years ago but I had forgotten who wrote this book that I loved so much. BBC radio 4 ran Mrs Dalloway a few years ago as a series. Now I must read all her work.
Thankyou for your marvellously eccentric delight in your hometown of London. The maps, the obscurities, the things you notice and thus so will your readers. London seems to have always inspired diarists of sorts. Esteemed company. 😃
Fascinating as always. I've only read 'To the Lighthouse' years ago, which is about as far removed from London as you can get in the UK. It's the only book I've read which describes a house ageing. Might be tempted to read 'Orlando' following your article.
I've been reading some of Nevil Shute and notice how often London comes up in his novels. Ealing (where Shute lived) in 'Trustee from the Toolroom' and Chancery Lane in 'A Town Like Alice', even the Royal Aeronautical Society in London gets mentioned in 'No Highway'. Still quite a few of his I've not read so probably lots more London references.
Wonderful! I referred to Virginia Woolf (Stephens at the time) stay at Brunswick Square in a substack post of my own - momentous because she was saved by Maynard Keynes' brother from a suicide attempt - but hadn't known exactly where it was!
Thanks Ronald. I read those a few years ago -- agree, they're a lot of fun... and a map of their Tolkeinesque journey to Wimbledon would be great fun to do. Not sure they're quite well-known enough or historical enough to fit this newsletter, however.
Useful VW map anyway, thanks. Planning a Woolf walk following Mrs Dalloway Westminster to Bond St and Regents Park, then 'Street Haunting' Tavistock Sq to the Strand and Embankment, linking back along the South Bank . Details still working out...
I’d forgotten that I had read Orlando - because of the film, overcoming my reluctance to read anything urged upon me as “great literature” as compared to reading all of the classic science fiction novels.
Wow, this is incredible work. And top marks for the name: geobibliome – love that!
I’m fascinated by writers who walk, so I’m often drawn to fictional walks and any references to walking. Other than the famous quote from A room of One’s Own, the part that sticks out for me is when Woolf recalls how she was reprimanded for straying off the path and walking on the grass at Cambridge.
"It was thus that I found myself walking with extreme rapidity across a grass plot. Instantly a man's figure rose to intercept me. Nor did I at first understand that the gesticulations of a curious-looking object, in a cut-away coat and evening shirt, were aimed at me. His face expressed horror and indignation. Instinct rather than reason came to my help; he was a Beadle; I was a woman. This was the turf; there was the path. Only the Fellows and Scholars are allowed here; the gravel is the place for me. Such thoughts were the work of a moment. As I regained the path the arms of the Beadle sank, his face assumed its usual repose, and though turf is better walking than gravel, no very great harm was done."
This is wonderful! ‘Woolf haul’ made me smile and I love how you create new words ! I live near Oxford City but hadn’t realised how much it features in her books.
Oh my! Thank you, Matt, for this. Ive recently been reading Orlando (an ‘imagining’ staged at the Southbank started me off). We ‘did’ Flush at school 60 years ago but I had forgotten who wrote this book that I loved so much. BBC radio 4 ran Mrs Dalloway a few years ago as a series. Now I must read all her work.
Patrick Hamilton’s ‘Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky’ would keep you busy Matt!
Yes… happily he doesn’t list 20,000 streets. That might be good actually, coupled with Hangover Square which I hugely enjoyed 20 years ago but have largely forgotten.
Oh my! Thank you, Matt, for this. Ive recently been reading Orlando (an ‘imagining’ staged at the Southbank started me off). We ‘did’ Flush at school 60 years ago but I had forgotten who wrote this book that I loved so much. BBC radio 4 ran Mrs Dalloway a few years ago as a series. Now I must read all her work.
Thanks Janice! Yes, Flush is quite a different proposition to her other novels, but it still feels Woolfian... or maybe Woof-ian.
Thankyou for your marvellously eccentric delight in your hometown of London. The maps, the obscurities, the things you notice and thus so will your readers. London seems to have always inspired diarists of sorts. Esteemed company. 😃
Aw, thanks Rose. London is infinitely inspiring, even after all these years.
Fascinating as always. I've only read 'To the Lighthouse' years ago, which is about as far removed from London as you can get in the UK. It's the only book I've read which describes a house ageing. Might be tempted to read 'Orlando' following your article.
I've been reading some of Nevil Shute and notice how often London comes up in his novels. Ealing (where Shute lived) in 'Trustee from the Toolroom' and Chancery Lane in 'A Town Like Alice', even the Royal Aeronautical Society in London gets mentioned in 'No Highway'. Still quite a few of his I've not read so probably lots more London references.
Wonderful! I referred to Virginia Woolf (Stephens at the time) stay at Brunswick Square in a substack post of my own - momentous because she was saved by Maynard Keynes' brother from a suicide attempt - but hadn't known exactly where it was!
How about The Borribles trilogy Michael de Larrabeiti, anarchic kid's books. Would get you south of the river. And they're really fun https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/19/borribles-childrens-books-reissued-1980s-riots?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Thanks Ronald. I read those a few years ago -- agree, they're a lot of fun... and a map of their Tolkeinesque journey to Wimbledon would be great fun to do. Not sure they're quite well-known enough or historical enough to fit this newsletter, however.
Useful VW map anyway, thanks. Planning a Woolf walk following Mrs Dalloway Westminster to Bond St and Regents Park, then 'Street Haunting' Tavistock Sq to the Strand and Embankment, linking back along the South Bank . Details still working out...
This is perfection!!
I’d forgotten that I had read Orlando - because of the film, overcoming my reluctance to read anything urged upon me as “great literature” as compared to reading all of the classic science fiction novels.
Wow, this is incredible work. And top marks for the name: geobibliome – love that!
I’m fascinated by writers who walk, so I’m often drawn to fictional walks and any references to walking. Other than the famous quote from A room of One’s Own, the part that sticks out for me is when Woolf recalls how she was reprimanded for straying off the path and walking on the grass at Cambridge.
"It was thus that I found myself walking with extreme rapidity across a grass plot. Instantly a man's figure rose to intercept me. Nor did I at first understand that the gesticulations of a curious-looking object, in a cut-away coat and evening shirt, were aimed at me. His face expressed horror and indignation. Instinct rather than reason came to my help; he was a Beadle; I was a woman. This was the turf; there was the path. Only the Fellows and Scholars are allowed here; the gravel is the place for me. Such thoughts were the work of a moment. As I regained the path the arms of the Beadle sank, his face assumed its usual repose, and though turf is better walking than gravel, no very great harm was done."
Thank you, wish I had this last year when I was in London! Good motivation to return.
This is wonderful! ‘Woolf haul’ made me smile and I love how you create new words ! I live near Oxford City but hadn’t realised how much it features in her books.
Oh my! Thank you, Matt, for this. Ive recently been reading Orlando (an ‘imagining’ staged at the Southbank started me off). We ‘did’ Flush at school 60 years ago but I had forgotten who wrote this book that I loved so much. BBC radio 4 ran Mrs Dalloway a few years ago as a series. Now I must read all her work.