London in Fiction - Crime and the City

What this episode covers

From tales of notorious murderers to eccentric sleuths, crime infested slums to the shadows of Soho, London has been the setting and inspiration for many crime novels. Sarah Wise takes a fresh look at Arthur Morrison's A Child of the Jago and its portrayal of a supposedly notorious 1890s East End criminal slum and Paul Duncan explores Gerald Kersh's London noir classic of the 1930s, Night and the City, and its depictions of clubs, call girls and chancers. Andrew Lane revisits Arthur Conan Doyle's creation of the detective Sherlock Holmes and a city of hansom cabs, 'pea souper' fogs and endless mystery and Valentine Cunningham introduces the more recent evocation of London at its most hopeless amongst a semi-criminal milieu in The Hard Shoulder by Chris Petit. The event was chaired by Andrew Whitehead. This series is organised in collaboration with London Fictions, a website exploring representations of the city in fiction.

Distinct summary based on available episode metadata or transcript content.