Moving Pageant

Rick Allen is Principal Lecturer in English at Anglia Polytechnic University in Cambridge.

'Rick Allen teaches English literature and his snipping scissors have picked out page after page of metaphors and rhetorical devices that capture in few words the noise, contrasts, night and day rhythms, and altogether stupendous quantitative sum of London's streets. His selection would be at home on the bookshelf in the spare room or downstairs loo, but must be intended mainly for student reading lists.' - Michael Hebbert, London Journal'This excellent book combines fact and fiction, the indispensable with the unusual, to reveal responses to [London] as varied as the metropolis itself. Superior to the familiar literary anthology, The Moving Pageant provides a systematic and thoughtfully organized perspective on London's history.' - Roy Porter'This superb compilation, while aimed at the academic reader, will be appreciated by anyone interested in the history, not only of London but of England.' - Contemporary Review, September, 1998'A fascinating collection of factual and fictional accounts ... Excellent.' - Sunday Times'An impressive collection of extracts and contemporary illustrations from the period in question This book creates an invaluable short-cut for students of social history and can be recommended without reservation.' - Joan Walpole Reilly, The Lecturer

• PART I ‘Amusements Serious and Comical’ PART II ‘A Mask of Maniacs’ PART III ‘The Attraction of Repulsion’ PART IV ‘In Darkest England and Some Ways out’