Fairy Tales of London

From the time of Charles Dickens the imaginative power of the city of London has frequently inspired writers to their most creative flights of fantasy. Charting a new history of London fantasy writing from the Victorian era to the 21st century <i>Fairy Tales of London</i> explores a powerful tradition of urban fantasy distinct from the rural tales of writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien. Hadas Elber-Aviram traces this urban tradition from Dickens through the scientific romances of H.G. Wells the anti-fantasies of George Orwell and Mervyn Peake to contemporary science fiction and fantasy writers such as Michael Moorcock Neil Gaiman and China Miéville.