List of illustrations -- Chronology -- Acknowledgements -- The city as body -- From prehistory to 1066. The sea! ; The stones ; Holy! Holy! Holy! -- The early Middle Ages. You be all law worthy -- London contrasts. Loud and everlasting ; Silence is golden -- The late Medieval city. This companye -- Onward and upward. Rather dark and narrow ; Packed to blackness ; Maps and antiquarians -- Trading streets and trading parishes. Where is the cheese of Thames Street? -- A London neighbourhood. The crossroads -- London as theatre. Show! Show! Show! Show! Show! ; He shuld neuer trobell the parish no more ; Theatrical city ; Violent delights ; Music, please ; Signs of the times ; All of them citizens -- Pestilence and Flame. A plague upon you ; Painting the town red -- After the Fire. A London address ; To build anew -- Crime and punishment. A Newgate ballad ; A note on suicide ; A penitential history ; A rogues gallery ; Horrible murder ; London's opera ; Raw lobsters and others ; Thereby hangs a tale -- Voracious London. Into the vortex ; A cookery lesson ; Eat in or take away ; Market time ; Waste matter ; A little drink or two ; Clubbing ; A note on tobacco ; A bad odour ; You sexy thing ; A turn of the dice -- London as crowd. Mobocracy ; What's new? -- The natural history of London. Give the lydy a flower ; Weather reports ; A foggy day -- Night and Day. Let there Be light ; Night in the city ; A city morning -- London's Radicals. Where is the well of Clerkenwell? -- Violent London. A ring! a ring! -- Black magic, white magic. I met a man who wasn't there ; Knowledge is power -- A fever of building. London will soon be next door to us ; Nothing quite like it -- London's rivers. You cannot take the Thames with you ; Dark Thames ; They are lost -- Under the ground. What lies beneath -- Victorian megalopolis. How many miles to Babylon? ; Wild things ; If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between -- London's outcasts. They are always with us ; Can you spare a little something? ; They outvoted me -- Women and children. The feminine principle ; Boys and girls come out to play -- Continuities. Have you got the time? ; The tree on the corner -- East and south. The stinking pile ; The South work -- The centre of empire. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner ; Empire Day -- After the great war. Suburban dreams -- Blitz. War news -- Refashioning the city. Fortune not design -- Cockney visionaries. Unreal city ; Resurgam -- An essay on sources -- Index.