Madeleine Minson
Urban Legends
The Lambs of London
By Peter Ackroyd
Chatto & Windus 216pp £15.99
PETER ACKROYD SEEMS to be everywhere you look at the moment. His TV series on London has only just left our screens; a short biography of Chaucer was published a few months ago; and it doesn't seem long since his previous novel, The Clerkenwell Tales, appeared last year - and those are just some of this prolific writer's recent darts. His latest novel has all the hallmarks of a typical piece of Achyd fiction: it is as concerned with London itself as it is with its inhabitants, and it reanimates historical personages. After Wilde, Hawksmoor and Chatterton, the turn of Charles Lamb has come, and there is also a cameo appearance by Thomas de Quincey.
Ackroyd combines the stories of the young Charles's literary ambitions and his sister Mary's frustration with her confinement in the family home with another true tale, that of William Ireland. When only a teenager, he presented two 'lost' Shakespeare plays to the world, Vortigem and Henry II, and got people
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk