An abridged edition of Peter Ackroyd's magisterial biography of the city of London, published to coincide with the London Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee.

Prize-winning historian, novelist and broadcast, Peter Ackroyd takes us on a journey -- historical, geographical and imaginative -- through the city of London. Moving back and forth through time, Ackroyd is an effortless, exuberant guide to times of plague and pestilence, fire and floods, crime and punishment, and sex and theatre. He brings the ever changing streets alive for the reader and shows us what lies beneath our feet and above our heads. His biography is as rich in detail and fizzing with vitality as the city itself.