London Beneath the Pavement

by Michael Harrison

Between a great city and a human being, says the author, is a curious and striking analogy: to find out how each 'works', one must go beneath the skin. Brain and muscle and tissue in ceaseless activity, even while the body sleeps, are matched by the out-of-sight mechanisms which lie beneath the pavements of the city. Light and heat and power circulate in their veins beneath the city's skin, and other channels carry away the waste products of the city's living.

Even when the city seems asleep the subterranean activity which keeps the above-ground city alive never ceases. And it is this wonderful beneath-the-surface life that Michael Harrison has uncovered for us in the pages of this enthralling book, showing an aspect of London which will be new to most readers. The same talent for historical detection that this author brought to the writing of his highly successful In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes, he brings to this delving beneath the skin of a great city.

Rocks, relics, ruins, railways, rivers: he notices and describes them all. He shows us the chance discovery of an outlawed religion's secret chapel beneath the surface of Oxford Street; he takes us to a still existing hermit's chapel beneath the modern skyscrapers of the rebuilt City; he tells us of the reign of terror that the Dynamiters brought to London's Underground, and of the day when workmen actually broke into the Bank of England.

Not the least fascinating chapter is that which deals with the night-life of London in the crypts, 'dives' and 'singing rooms' beneath the pavements; in another chapter the author recalls some of the crimes which have been committed in the darkness of cellar and basement. Elsewhere he tells of buried treasure and of the relics of London's past which have been found; and through the 'finds' brought to light by workman's pick or by sheer chance, he traces the history of London back through the ages to the Celtic hill-fort above the wide, swampy Thames.

280 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1971

About the author

Michael Harrison was the pen name of English detective fiction and fantasy author Maurice Desmond Rohan. Harrison published seventeen novels between 1934 and 1954, when he turned to writing detective fiction. He wrote pastiches of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Poe's C. Auguste Dupin, and was a noted Sherlock Holmes scholar.

Reviews

[Timo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Harrison weet heel wat boeiends te vertellen over de ondergrond van Londen, die hij vooral als toegangspoort tot het verleden van de stad beschouwd. Jammer genoeg doet hij dat op een weinig gestructureerde manier: Harrison schreef neer wat in hem opkwam, en dat begon me uiteindelijk meer en meer te ergeren. Een heel fijn mens kan hij bovendien niet geweest zijn, met al zijn conservatieve maatschappijkritiek. Met de doembeelden over het nakende einde van de wereld - jawel, ook die ontbreken niet in London beneath the pavement - kon ik wel nog leven: het boek werd immers in 1960 geschreven, toen de 'U-2 crisis' net de Oost-Westrelaties weer grondig had verzuurd. Maar nu dwaal ik ook al af!