The story is told with a refreshing candour… [an] outstanding narrative account of the end of empire

Detailed, informative ... impressively researched. A Heyer lover writing for Heyer fans

This fascinating book is a must for Heyer devotees

An invaluable guide to the world of the bon ton. No lover of Georgette Heyer's novels should be without it

A definitive guide to the people, places and society of her novels

Everything you need to know about Georgette Heyer's historical romance novels ... Accompanied by charming illustrations, this is all you ever wanted to discover about the society and politics of Regency Britain and how it influenced Heyer's work. A great book

Wonderful ... packed with information and fascinating facts about the realm [Georgette Heyer's] characters inhabit ... excellent

Learned, thoughtful and beautifully written... it conveys brilliantly and vividly the strange quality of these individuals' lives

Authoritative and scholarly

Evenhanded, carefully researched and elegantly written

A treasure trove of information from the serious to the trivial

Mammoth…beguiling…intriguing…vivid…engrossing

Truly, he has written London’s biography. I began rereading it as soon as I finished, and I urge you to read it as soon as possible, so that you can begin rereading it as well

A fat and filling feast: pretty much everything of interest about the capital is crammed into the eight-hundred pages. One cannot but marvel at Ackroyd’s erudition, his energy in marshalling minutiae, his ear for quotation, his flair for dazzling juxtapositions, his vibrant imagination and sheer exuberance

An erudite labour of love, a fan-letter to a fabulous city, and a book one suspects Ackroyd was destined to write. It illuminates the English character, and is darkly humorous in its detail, tumbling through centuries crowded with legendary events and eccentric observations, as exuberant, energetic and alarming as the city itself

A masterpiece

Spellbinding

A sharp, beautifully written but above all truthful account of London…This is the kind of writing that gives intellectuals a good name