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Lead book review

Dickens’s dark side: walking at night helped ease his conscience at killing off characters

A review of Nightwalking by Matthew Beaumont examines how London at night provided inspiration for some of our greatest classics

21 March 2015

9:00 AM

21 March 2015

9:00 AM

Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London Matthew Beaumont

Verso, pp.496, £20, ISBN: 9781781687956

In England, walking about at night was a crime for a very long time. William the Conqueror ordained that a bell should be rung at 8 p.m., at which point Londoners were supposed to put their fires and candles out and their heads down. Again and again, until modern times, Matthew Beaumont tells us, specifically nocturnal laws were promulgated against draw-latchets, roberdsmen, barraters, roysterers, roarers, harlots and other nefarious nightwalkers — including those ‘eavesdroppers’ who stood listening in the close darkness where the rain dripped from a house’s eaves.

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