New edition in hardback

A London Christmas is an anthology of seasonal memories compiled from journals, novels, poems, local traditions and historical events, illustrated with over forty photographs and engravings. Diatribes against seasonal excesses mingle with celebrations of a more benevolent kind - best illustrated by Charles Dickens in A Christmas Carol.

In this book you will find everything associated with Christmas in London through the ages – from the fifteenth century when festivities were overseen by a Lord of Misrule and seventeeth-century Puritans’ attempt to abolish Christmas entirely, to Norway's annual gift of a Christmas tree and the bravery of Londoners spending Christmas under the threat of the Blitz. A wealth of fictional characters help to celebrate the joy of the season, from Mr Pooter in The Diary of a Nobody to the tale of a shopping spree in London in Diary of a Provincial Lady.

This book is a delight for anyone who has ever spent Christmas in the capital.