Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London

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Before the age of electricity, the nighttime city was a very different place to the one we know today home to the lost, the vagrant and the noctambulant. My dogs are far too loud for me to see any of the creatures he describes but I enjoyed reading about them all the same.

A wonderful book, that has many fascinating things to say about the night-time life of our capital down the ages.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. There is something very quiet and immediate about night time walks and these are perfect to listen to before falling asleep. I Thoroughly enjoyed listening to the authors nocturnal adventures and his excellent descriptions of all of the creatures who venture out at night. Photograph: Alan Thornton/Getty Images View image in fullscreen ‘Like a monster holding its breath’ … London after dark.

Obviously aimed at the intellectual and students of early English literature, the writing is ponderous and would not hold the attention of persons with a casual interest in the history of London. However, human perception and the law often move at different speeds, and even though it was no longer a criminal offence to stroll or saunter at night, that did not prevent a newly formed police force from detaining anyone who gave cause for suspicion, even if that amounted to little more than looking a bit shifty.The largest change had come slightly earlier, with the introduction of street lighting during (appropriately) the Enlightenment. The author does an outstanding job of tracing how the simple act of walking after sunset has been viewed as morally suspect. 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. And if he thinks people might think he's a criminal, I'd imagine that would be even more likely if he wasn't white.

We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. Similarly, this book’s own title and Beaumont’s discussion personify the night as it haunts London in perpetuity. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.There was and is always something a little bit transgressive about daring to go out after dark, just for the pleasure of it.