London in the footsteps of the famous
Nicholas Best

‘I went through a door Shakespeare once went through, and into a pub he knew. We sat at a table against the back wall and I leaned my head back, against a wall Shakespeare’s head once touched, and it was indescribable.’

Helene Hanff, 84 Charing Cross Road

A guidebook with a difference, published in conjunction with English Heritage. It takes you on short walks around London, following always in the footsteps of the famous. At every point you will stand where somebody famous stood, often centuries earlier, and will learn from eye-witness accounts exactly what they were doing when they stood there. If you follow the guide carefully you will see all of London that is worth seeing and you will see it through the eyes of the most distinguished people in English - and sometimes world - history.

There are ten walks to choose from, each with a list of contents at the front. Everybody is in here somewhere, from William the Conqueror and Thomas a Becket to Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I, Sir Isaac Newton, Jane Austen, Lord Nelson and Charles Dickens. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is here too, and so are Benjamin Franklin, Felix Mendelssohn, Richard Wagner, Karl Marx, Fyodor Dostoevsky and hundreds of others, including of course Jack the Ripper. No London guide would be complete without him.