Night Walking : A Nocturnal History of London(Hardback) - 2015 Edition

by Matthew Beaumont

Before the age of the gas lamp, the city at night was a different place, home to the lost, the vagrant and the noctiambulators. In this brilliant work of literary investigation, Matthew Beautmont shines a light on the dark perambulations of poets, novelists and thinkers from Shakespeare, the ecstatic strolls of William Blake, the feverish urges of opium addict De Quincey as well as the master night walker, Charles Dickens.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, London, Walking, Travel, Cities, British Literature

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2015

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

An alternative title for this book could have been "Men walking".

This is a personal and a bit rambling book, and at times very interesting, but at the same time the book is not totally clear on its focus: sometimes it is about men walking, sometimes about London (mostly the unprivileged parts), sometimes about London at night - and sometimes about walking at night in London. And all this with a heavy slant towards men of letters, when Beaumont doesn't switch to his other mode: a general description of London's social history, policing or analyzing specific words connected to walking.

There is also a striking lack of women, they are mostly just hinted at, and mostly seen through the eyes of these male writers, who often have their own agendas. Since this book spends so much time on the social history of London, couldn't there have been some room for this aspect? After all, wouldn't that have been more to the point of the purpose of this book, than for example describing De Quincy walking around in Wales with a tent on his back, that he used to sleep in at night?

[Stephen Goldenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an inveterate London walker (although always by day, hardly ever at night), this was a book I was keen to read. It is a hugely detailed work of literary and historical investigation which is over detailed and laborious at times but, in the end, repays the effort sometimes needed to get through it.
There's a wealth of fascinating information about London at night from medieval times to the 19th century, not least the history of street lighting and curfews and the slow development of the policing of the night-time streets. But mainly this is an analysis of the works of literary night walkers - both the famous (Chaucer, Shakespeare, Blake, Wordsworth, De Quincey, Dickens) and the obscure.
By the end, it's the philosophical, social and moral ambiguities of the city at night that stayed with me. The city at night as a place where good and evil meet and become interchangeable.
(A warning note - don't be put off by Will Self's foreword which, as he so often does, equates cleverness and insight with unreadability.)

[K.J. Charles]

A mostly very enjoyable and readable account of nightwalking in London from the eleventh century to the 19th, as mediated by literature.

(What? I don't always read books about cannibal chefs, you know.)

I don't know if there's quite enough to the topic to support the length, and the author does fall into academic blether occasionally, but the medieval history parts and the section on Blake are tremendous, vivid and fascinating. Well chosen quotes and sources too. A really interesting perspective for the London lit lover.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admittedly, I judged this book by its cover and bought it on a whim. I'm so happy that I did. It's a wonderful and rich history of walking at night (mostly in London). A thorough analysis of people who walk the night and those who safeguard against it...which is always accompanied by how we view people who've wandered the night over the centuries and of the night itself. Fascinating from start to finish. Give it a go!

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

it takes me a long time to read nonfiction. this was a great book - I was attracted to the poetic aspect of it. it was clear matthew beaumont knows a hell of a lot about literature and history. I didn't agree with all his assessments - I wouldn't say shelley is making the case that the skylark is an aesthetic construct, for example,I just think he's saying it has transcended the material realm. but I learned a lot about literature and london - didn't know marble arch was the site of tyburn tree, a public gallows. didn't know blake was so down on druids. I also spent a lot of time feeling pissed off about how the 1% have always oppressed the 99%. and some time thinking about where I would have stood vis a vis the enlightenment and the counter-enlightenment. I'm not anti-science, but I am also a romantic. anyway, a rich book, well worth reading. and such a beautiful cover.

[Gisselle · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 but rounded up to 4 for the strong finish. I thought the writer was best when speaking about the history surrounding the individuals he profiled. I appreciated the Marxist analysis of both the history and literature included in the book and I thought it contributed to his argument. I was not a fan of every writer and excerpt he included and this made the book drag at points. That said, the build up contributed to the pay off of the Dickens chapters, which knocked it out of the park. The Poe chapter was well-done also, and I actually wanted more of it. I also appreciated being introduced to the works of Dekker. All in all, a niche idea that the writer fleshed out expertly.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a delightful book! Its exploration of London’s nightwalkers begins in Shakespeare’s walled city, in which there was no good reason for anyone but the night watch to be out; it proceeds through the bohemian period, in which the noctavagant are actively resisting the strictures of clock-watching artisans. The books concludes in Dickens’ insomniac walks to his country home, tortured as he was by some pre-Freudian psychology that would only be drawn out by the noirs and crime novels of the mid-20th century (outside Beaumont’s purview). In between we get Wordsworth’s compositional walkabouts, Tennyson’s dark maidens (although no “Highwayman” and that’s puzzle), Chaucer, William Blake, and Thomas De Quincey. Beaumont’s book is an ecstatic celebration of our tendency to invest the night with all our fears, guilt, and desires. And I learned the origin of “curfew,” from “couvre feu,” the requirement to extinguish hearth fires at night.

[Adam Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beaumont has written a rambling exploration of people rambling in London at night, and particularly those who have written about rambling people in the past. In a sense, my low rating is not Beaumont's fault. I read this as a historian, Beaumont writes as a literary critic. He is at his most interesting when discussing changing societal attitudes and lexicographical developments (did you know "pedestrian" was used in its "metaphorical" sense before its "literal" one?). But a lot of this long book is discussing particular writings in depth (Shakespeare, Johnson, Blake etc.), which is of less interest. Do you like books about books? Then, read this book. Do you like books about walking? Read a map. Do you like books about the social history of London? Probably best to borrow this from a library, read a few chapters, and then move on.

[Nicki Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nightwalking was at times a dense read, but no less enjoyable for that. It blends social and legal history with literary history and commentary in a remarkable way, drawing some fascinating conclusions. I loved the profiles of the various writers, and the way Beaumont linked their nocturnal wanderings to their writing, and to the views of the time in which they lived. Given its tone, this is probably a book more for readers used to perusing heavier, academic texts than those looking for a light non-fiction read along the lines of Peter Ackroyd. However, if you are inclined to give it a try, it more than pays off your time and effort as it is an intriguing study.

[Jeff Howells · Rating 2 out of 5]

A history of noctambulation (nightwalking basically) from the Middle Ages to the Charles Dickens. Essentially the nightwalker in London history has had a bit of bad press. In the time of curfews they were probably up to no good, a thief, a prostitute or a vagrant...the lost, the lonely & the sleepless. I struggled to get into this book, then I struggled to get through it and I struggled to absorb the information within it. There is undoubtably a lot of research here, but the chapters on Dickens aside, it didn't capture my interest. A shame.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn’t finish. Got about 90 pages in and stopped. Liked the history of London opening but once the literary criticism started felt like he was trying too hard to show off. And basing a book around every time someone wrote the words “night” or “nightwalker” throughout history became very repetitive. The Will Self foreword should have been a hint of what was to come.
Disappointing.

[Naz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-studied, well-written book that sometimes felt like a literary roller coaster. Just when you start to think it's getting dull, it picks up pace and you don't want the ride to end.
I was mostly attracted to the social history aspect but enjoyed the literary criticism as much.

[Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed as I looked forward to a more sociological and less literary one.

[Caro · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some very interesting historical facts, there were some interesting facts about poets, writers, etc but it was not an easy pleasant read. I felt it was repetitive and too long.

[Paul Cowdell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably a 3.5, but it's staying on my shelves now i've read it. There's a lot to like here, but the book isn't quite what the author thinks it is. Beaumont is a literary scholar, and the book is essentially a series of critical investigations of - frankly - some of the usual London suspects, although these are well worth your time, of course. (Could have done with more Thomas Dekker in my view).

Beaumont's ambition, however, is to go beyond his literary expertises into a broader cultural examination of walking by night, with slightly less success. Despite a certain serious engagement with historical material (that's clearly somewhat restricted), his approach seems to be guided by the rather more cavalier sweep of cultural studies. Things don't always have to be linked up scrupulously, and enthusiasm is allowed to stand in for argument: we get the usual assortment of Benjamin and Adorno references, and a perfunctory passing reference to Louis Aragon and the Surrealists, that serves mainly to permit the odd wild inclusion of continental examples that may have significantly different cultural backstories. Succumbing to this temptation even undermines some of the things he's good at: I really appreciated the pointer to William Baldwin's Beware the Cat: The First English Novel, which I clearly need to read, but there's not even a passing reference to its anti-Catholic satirical intent, which seems surely necessary contextual information. (It doesn't help that in his gushing here he seems not to know what 'onomatopoeia' means, which is worrying in a literature academic).

On his home turf, though, he's very good: a little generous to Wordsworth, but appropriately critical of de Quincey, and perhaps surprising to those of us who doubted whether Dickens could be fit into any kind of 'alternative' view of this literary subgenre. The overstretching may be what happens if you hang out with Will Self too much. (I didn't bother with Self's introduction/conclusion: the more-or-less interesting hack riffing on the themes of other, rather better writers is itself a definite category of London writer and not to be dismissed, but that doesn't mean I have to get particularly enthusiastic when they turn up). But take Beaumont on his abilities rather than his ambitions and it repays the reading.

[Sophy H · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

Full disclosure, I started skim reading from about the 3rd or 4th chapter in, when I realized this wasn't the book I was anticipating.

So this book is essentially a literary review of all things nocturnal in written form from around the 1300's or so through to the 19th century.

It wasn't the book I was expecting and therefore my enjoyment of it was severely limited.

The author has diligently sourced, researched and heavily quoted significant swathes of literature pertaining to nocturnal London and good on him for achieving that, but this feels like reading someone's university dissertation on the subject. It translates as verrrry tedious.

Sorry Mr Beaumont, this wasn't my bag, although I did learn some new bizarre words such as obnubilate!

[Mentatreader · Rating 1 out of 5]

I cannot divine any reason praise has been given to this book. I got few if any facts about from it. It is not a history. There are no primary sources and secondary studies are badly used. A study of the 16th century is not "obviously" applicable to the nineteenth. Also imaginative works are not valid sources of history. I would not be surprised if the wonderful victory of humans, dwarves, and elves over the orcs was not given as one of the sources of night walking in Dickens time. The author is obviously the owner of My Big Book of Literary Criticism as the majority of the text reads as an over enthusiastic student's first essay. Fiction about fiction is not history. With it is the modern conceit of wordplay masquerading as critical thought. The author also projects modern thought patterns anachronistically onto the past without justification. The whole work is washed over with modern liberal marxist platitudes, obviously everyone out at night is a political act of the underclasses and everything bad is the middle class's fault and no criminal act is the responsibility of its doer. Everyone is a victim of capitalism, even before its invention.

[Thomas Brand · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book more. In fact, I think the amount I wanted to to enjoy it is the only reason I managed to make myself finish it.

The main concept is one of those that is oddly interesting: a history of London at night. But it is interesting. It’s one of those areas that you don’t realise you’ve never thought about. I mean, when did you last think about how much public street lighting must have fundamentally changed public life? Or what life in the was city like when it would literally be pitch dark at night? I didn’t know that the literal act of being outside at night was once considered a crime. Did you?

And the conceit should work as well. Beaumont uses examples of literature from different periods throughout London’s history - from Shakespeare to Dickens - to show how these poets and authors - in their work and their lives - reflected these changes in society. How going outside at night without an explicit reason went from being a crime to a leisurely pastime of gentlefolk.
But unfortunately Beaumont took this in completely the wrong direction. Rather than a history shown through the lens of literature, he makes this a literary critique that simply uses history as a loose excuse to show off his own knowledge. His writing is overly literary and self important - seeing the Forward was written by Will Self was fair warning, I suppose - making large chunks of the book almost unreadable. The topics should be interesting, and most often start off that way, but then Beaumont will slip into deep literary analysis that makes it impossible to stay engaged.

Essentially, this could easily lose around half its word-count. It’s not a thin book so wouldn’t look anaemic, and it would be a much better read.
Unfortunately Beaumont appears to be part of that literary scene who believe that part of a good book is making it as hard to read as possible. It’s not the subject he’s writing about that he wants us to be impressed with, but his own intelligence. This is not a book the writer intended to be enjoyed. I’m half convinced that Beaumont may have just published his PHD thesis.

It wasn’t so bad that I gave up on it. There was enough in there to chip through and enjoy. But it’s not a good sign when your reaction on finishing a book is relief.

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written elegiac trip through a city’s other history. Into that thick tobacco-breath night of the 16th century. We walk with the vagabonds and the mysterious, the suspicious and the terrible. Night watchmen calling out the hours, disturbing the slumbers and invading our dreams. Grub Street poets watching the dark and stepping through the centuries. Johnson’s poet hero Savage tried for murder. Returning soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars now destitute; unloved, unheralded and unseen. De Quincey’s wandering troublepoet and Blake’s dream imagination a study in midnight blue. The long walk to the hangman’s noose at Tyburn Gate. And Dickens; anyone who has ever wandered lonely down by the Thames at Southwark after hours will know the threat and menace of his best worst villains.

Some sleepless nights I take the dog out, into the 3am city stillness and hope to see an old spirit avoiding eye contact under his hat coming the other way. All the best things happen after dark. And nightwalking still feels like a small rebellion.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rich in imagery and idea, this is the kind of book that makes readers ask questions and explore further. Readers walk with Savage, Johnson, De Quincey, Dickens, Poe (and their characters) and others, getting to know these artists, their texts, London at night (chartered and unchartered), and the human condition in new and thought-provoking ways. I will read it again, and I'll long for books that study women writers and dark London and other writers and noctambulations in other cities.

[Marisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listen, there is no median between two and three stars. I didn't dislike this book; if anything, I think I may have had too high hopes. The subject matter is fascinating to me, but it's quite dry. I never quite shook the feeling that I was being lectured to. Still, if you like Londoniana, you will find something of great odd value in this tome.

[Brian Yatman · Rating 5 out of 5]

We moved recently and this book is currently boxed up in our garage. I'll get back to it (eventually)

[Alex Sarll]

A history of a "quintessentially objectless, loitering and vagabond" behaviour, ranging by sometimes indirect routes across several centuries, so I don't feel too bad about taking years to finish it myself. It felt most fitting to read it by night, after all – which before the Event would generally mean on the way home, and after literal curfews returned from out of the dark years, meant it was one of the ebooks I'd fire up when I woke in the small hours, all these years of wanderers through the shrouded city sometimes serving to lead my thoughts out of their own dark labyrinths.

Inevitably, this means that I remember some bits of the book considerably better than others, but then so does history, Beaumont's guides ranging from the big names to cult figures and obscure pamphleteers. Looming last and largest, wrapping up the book bar an afterthought on Poe, is Dickens, himself addicted to nocturnal ramblings both as part of his life and creative practice, and within his writing. As so often, I found reading someone interesting on Dickens much more rewarding than actually reading Dickens, all the eeriness disentangled from the drifts of sentimentality and stodge and shit accents; appropriately, Beaumont is particularly good on The Old Curiosity Shop, and how the author kicked his nightwalking narrator to the curb after a couple of chapters because he was creeping readers out. But even John Clare didn't occasion the heavy sigh he usually does, because whatever my thoughts on his merits qua writer, here, as the intersection of Romantic poet and genuine vagabond, he is undeniably relevant. And that distinction, the way that being out after dark was viewed and policed differently for different classes of people doing it, is key to the whole account – even as, transgressive and transformative, the night would always do its bit to complicate and confuse those distinctions, helping to conceal rank, intent and even gender. Beaumont is very good on Renaissance theatre's treatment of nocturnal activity (which I don't mean as a euphemism, though of course that's part of it too, as witness the double meaning even of the title itself). Curfews and other restrictions are, obviously, a means of social control - envisaged as keeping men productive as workers and women productive of future workers. But the Enlightenment was among other things literal - the time when streets started being lit at night – and capitalism's ability to make incursions further into the night feels like part of the reason for the book winding down where it does, even though I'm sure Beaumont would have been able to find plenty more good material in Bohemia and black-out.

For a book on this pattern, perfection would almost be a betrayal; fidelity to the topic requires the occasional wrong turn and blind alley. De Quincey obviously has to be here, but equally, his indivisibility from the theme means that the material on him feels familiar in a way the rest of the book rarely does. At the other extreme, Blake requires some slightly debatable reading to make London a nocturnal poem, which is never how I pictured it nor how the (unmentioned) illustration tends. But these are very much the exceptions; more representative are the fascinating excavation of Dekker's pamphlet Lanthorne And Candle-Light, which "provided its readers with irresistible glimpses of the corrupt life that pullulated in the secret spaces of the metropolis at night", or the firm distinction hilariously maintained between the historical significance and artistic merit of the unfortunate William Pattison: "If his poems had been readable, he might have acquired a reputation as a proto-Romantic, like Thomas Chatterton. But they weren't, so he didn't."

And just to ensure I left my long wander through Nightwalking with a fond, albeit sometimes vague impression, an afterword from Will Self saw me out as dawn came this morning, recounting a 2014 Solstice walk with Beaumont and one other which took them past what was not yet, but is now, the end of my road.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this at the Whitechapel Gallery in east London a few months back (which felt like the perfect place to buy it) because the title immediately caught my eye. I am and have always been a night owl, I love walking, and I especially love walking in London, so everything about this book’s premise appealed to me. Overall, although it was more academic than I initially realized, I did really enjoy it - I’m a former English major who actually loves reading literary analysis, especially when it’s about many of my favorite writers writing about London. Unsurprisingly, the section on Dickens was my favorite, but I also especially loved reading about Blake and his London. I do think the book’s major fault is that it doesn’t do a great job of including women in the narrative in any larger, more meaningful way - I think much more could’ve been investigated and written about that than was included here.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book's title is pretty accurate description of it: a sociological, anthropological, and literary history of walking at night in the City of London.
On the whole, the book was fascinating (and enlightening, since walking and photographing at night is a favorite pastime of mine). The author does an outstanding job of tracing how the simple act of walking after sunset has been viewed as morally suspect. And in the process, he provides some context around the modern-day criminalization of homelessness.
This is a dense book; but consider that it's packed with facts and excerpts from historical records and various literary works. The writing is too pretentious for my tastes at times, but that's a very minor complaint.

[Ian Mapp · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abandoned at 82 Pages.

I loved the premise, being a big walker, lover of London and indulging in a little psychogeography. I also like Peter Ackroyd - and so does Matthew Beaumont.

First impressions, I was horrified at the size and depth of the book. How much mileage can one person get out of walking at night.

An incredible amount, if you repeat yourself on every page.

Got to the chapter on Shakespeare and it seemed at though our author had tracked every play, sonnet and poem the bard had written to search for "night walking", quoted it, and said that only wrong 'uns are out a night.

I can't think who this would appeal to.

A shame, as it might have picked up when we got to Dickens time. But there are too many books to plod through one you are not enjoying.

[Stuart Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Original approach to night walking in literature, covering both authors and their creations. Beautifully written, and displaying a wide and detailed knowledge of writers famous and obscure (at least to me), Beaumont exposes the underbelly of literature (chiefly) about London. In some ways reminiscent of Colin Wilson's 'The Outsider' (which studied a range of individuals, including Nijinsky, Henri Barbusse, Albert Camus and Dennis Wheatley), Nightwalkers made me want re-read The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge, a number of Shakespeare's plays, and Engels' 'The Condition of the English Working Class in 1844', as well as to read Joyce's 'Ulysses', and Edgar Allan Poe.

[Shoshi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I let myself sleep on this one. This book had some interesting points to make, but seemed either to get bogged down in the quantity of sources (after ~1650) or the quotes themselves. The author should have given a special mention in the acknowledgments to Walter Benjamin as he seemed to crib so much of his work esp on Baudelaire. It was odd that Baudeliere himself got so little mention.
One could argue the book meandered like a nightwalker through a big city, but that seems overgenerous.
Special eyerolls for the Michel Foucault bits. I first read him in college and he still comes off as self important, obnoxious and pretentious.
The ending on the book was saved by Will Self's Afterward.

[Mac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe call this a DNF? A KOR (Kind of Read)? SQO (Skimmed Quite Often)?

Did not come into this expecting a literary history. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised when a book doesn't give me what I thought I was getting into, so I pressed on. The fore and afterword and "regular" history bits were quite interesting but I found myself flagging hard during the more literary analyses. Much skimming was done. My apologies.

[Rosiemay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has been on my "to read" shelf for an awfully long time. It didn't quite live up to my expectations, it could quite easily have been half the length. Some of the content was very tenuously related to London or night walking, or, for that matter, night or walking. I was quite glad to finish as by the end I had lost a bit of interest. However, the afterword by Will Self is a charm.