Many notable works of fiction are set in London , the capital city of England and of the United Kingdom . The following is a selection; there are too many such fictional works for it to be possible to compile a complete list.
William Blake 's poem London , which explores the meaning of the city. This image is a digital repercussion of his hand-painted 1826 print from Copy AA of Songs of Innocence and of Experience . The item is currently in the Collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum , Cambridge, England.[1]
Many of Charles Dickens ' most famous novels are at least partially set in London; including: Oliver Twist (1838), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1850), Bleak House (1853), Little Dorrit (1857), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1861), Our Mutual Friend (1865), and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)
William Makepeace Thackeray — Vanity Fair (1847)
Mark Twain — The Prince and the Pauper (1881)
Henry James — The Princess Casamassima (1886), A London Life (1888), What Maisie Knew (1897), In the Cage (1898)
Oscar Wilde — The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
H. G. Wells — The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898)
G. K. Chesterton — his allegorical works The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) and The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) both feature surreal depictions of London
Joseph Conrad — The Secret Agent (1907)
J. M. Barrie — Peter and Wendy (1904–1911)
Marie Belloc Lowndes — The Lodger (1913)
D. H. Lawrence — Sons and Lovers (1913)
P. G. Wodehouse — in his Jeeves and Wooster novels (1919 onwards), Wooster lives mainly in London, and is a member of the Drones Club
T. S. Eliot — his long poem The Waste Land (1922) makes frequent reference to the Unreal City[ disputed – discuss ]
Virginia Woolf — Mrs Dalloway (1925)
Evelyn Waugh — Vile Bodies (1930)
Aldous Huxley — Brave New World (1932)
P. L. Travers — Mary Poppins (1934) Takes place on Cherry Tree Lane and at the Bank of England
Patrick Hamilton — 20,000 Streets Under the Sky (1935)
George Orwell — Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
Cameron McCabe — The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor (1937)
T. H. White — The Sword in the Stone (1938)
Patrick Hamilton — Hangover Square (1941)
Patrick White — The Living and the Dead (1941)
Norman Collins — London Belongs to Me (1945)
Elizabeth Bowen — The Heat of the Day (1949)
Agatha Christie — Crooked House (1949)
John Wyndham — The Day of the Triffids (1951)
Graham Greene — The End of the Affair (1951), The Destructors (1954)
Dodie Smith — The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956)
Michael Bond — A Bear Called Paddington (1958)
Colin MacInnes — Absolute Beginners (1959), Mr Love and Justice (1960)
Iris Murdoch — A Severed Head (1961)
Muriel Spark — The Girls of Slender Means (1963)
Doris Lessing — The Four-Gated City (1969)
Michael Moorcock — the Jerry Cornelius stories (from 1969): Mother London (1988), King of the City (2000)
Thomas Pynchon — Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
Maureen Duffy — Capital: a Fiction (1975)
Julian Barnes — Metroland (1980)
Peter Ackroyd — The Great Fire of London (1982), Hawksmoor (1985), English Music (1992), The House of Doctor Dee (1993), Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994)
Alan Moore — V for Vendetta (1982 – 1989), From Hell (1989–1996)
Martin Amis — Money (1984), London Fields (1989)
Iain Banks — Walking on Glass (1985)
Tom Clancy — Patriot Games (1987)
Hanif Kureishi — The Buddha of Suburbia (1987)
Vertigo (DC Comics) — Hellblazer (1988–2013)
Salman Rushdie — The Satanic Verses (1989)
Josephine Hart — Damage (1991)
Bernice Rubens — A Solitary Grief (1991)
Barbara Vine — King Solomon's Carpet (1991)
Nick Hornby — Fever Pitch - A Fan's Life (1992), High Fidelity (1995), About a Boy (1998)
Will Self — Grey Area (1994)
Helen Fielding — Bridget Jones's Diary (1996)
Neil Gaiman — Neverwhere (1996) is set partly in real London, and partly in an alternative 'London Below'
Anthony Frewin — London Blues (1997), is set mainly in Soho at the time of the Profumo affair
Ian McEwan — Enduring Love (1997)
J. K. Rowling — Harry Potter series (1997–2007) features fictional London locations: the hidden Diagon Alley , and Platform 9+ 3 ⁄ 4 at King's Cross
Kouta Hirano — Hellsing manga series (1997–2009) casts London as the story's main setting
William Boyd — Armadillo (1998)
Hanif Kureishi — Gabriel's Gift (2001)
John Lanchester — Mr Phillips (2001), Capital (2012)
Bernard Cornwell — Gallows Thief (2001)
Philip Reeve — Mortal Engines (2001), A Darkling Plain (2006), Fever Crumb (2009)
Zadie Smith — White Teeth (2000), NW (2012)
Miles Tredinnick — Topless , (2001)
Iain Banks — Dead Air (2002)
William Gibson — Pattern Recognition (2003)
Zoë Heller — Notes on a Scandal (2003)
Adam Thirlwell — Politics (2003)
Neal Stephenson — The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver (2003), The Confusion (2004), The System of the World (2004))
Monica Ali — Brick Lane (2004)
Ben Elton — Past Mortem (2004)
A. N. Wilson — My Name Is Legion (2004)
Nick Hornby — A Long Way Down (2005)
Ian McEwan — Saturday (2005)
Will Self — The Book of Dave (2006)
Charles Finch — A Beautiful Blue Death (2007), The September Society (2008), The Fleet Street Murders (2009), A Stranger in Mayfair (2010)
Mary Novik — Conceit (2007)
Charlie Fletcher — The Stoneheart (2008)
Anthony Horowitz — Stormbreaker, Eagle Strike, Scorpia, Ark Angel (2008)
Ruth Rendell — Portobello (2008)
Audrey Niffenegger — Her Fearful Symmetry (2009)
DC Comics — Wonder Woman is based in London following The New 52 relaunch of her ongoing series (2011–present)
Jared Anthony Patterson — My Journey through the Gay Underground of London: Memoir of a Tottenham Boy (2011)
Ben Aaronovitch — Rivers of London (2011), Moon Over Soho (2011), Whispers Under Ground (2012), Broken Homes (2013) The Hanging Tree (2016) The Furthest Station (2017)
Mike Bartlett — 13 (2011)
Daniel O'Malley — The Rook (2012)
Robert Galbraith — The Cuckoo's Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014) Career of Evil (2015) Lethal White (TBC)
Anakana Schofield — Martin John (2016)
Robert J. Sherman — Bumblescratch (2016)
John Roman Baker — Time of Obsessions (2017)
Cassandra Clare — The Clockwork Angel (2010), The Clockwork Prince (2011), The Clockwork Princess (2013)
Jonathan Stroud — The Screaming Staircase (2013), The Whispering Skull (2014), The Hollow Boy (2015), The Creeping Shadow (2016), The Empty Grave (2017)
Deborah Hewitt — The Nightjar (2019)
Garth Nix — The Left-Handed Booksellers of London (2020)
Several nursery rhymes mention places in London.
London Fictions — looks at commanding London novels from Defoe to the present day