Synopses & Reviews
A dynamic recounting of the horror that gripped London in 1666 after a small baker's fire erupted and spread, destroying 13,200 homes, 93 churches, St. Paul's Cathedral, and every administrative building in the capital. Looting, savage violence, panic, and chaos reigned, but what happened in the fire's wake was even more extraordinary.
Synopsis
This dynamic, "admirably researched" ("The Spectator") recounting of the horror that gripped London in 1666, after the "Great Fire of London" destroyed much of the city, provides a "fascinating survey of the various Londons that might have been" ("Sunday Telegraph "[London]).
Synopsis
Adrian Tinniswood's magnificent new account of the Great Fire of London explores the history of a cataclysm and its consequences. A dynamic recounting of the horror that gripped London in 1666 after a small baker's fire erupted and spread, destroying 13,200 homes, 93 churches, St. Paul's Cathedral, and every administrative building in the capital. Looting, savage violence, panic, and chaos reigned, but what happened in the fire's wake was even more extraordinary.
Synopsis
A magnificently told and thrilling account of one of the most dramatic events in British history.
Adrian Tinniswood's magnificent new account of the Great Fire of London explores the history of a cataclysm and its consequences, from that first small blaze in a baker's house in Pudding Lane in the early hours of September 2nd, 1666 to the inferno that would devastate the third largest city in the Western world. The statistics are terrible: 436 acres of closely packed streets burned; 13,200 houses destroyed; 10 million lost at a time when 10 million represented the City's annual income for 800 years. But the Great Fire wasn't simply a tragedy of economics or architecture. It wrecked lives and destroyed livelihoods. It killed and maimed, and it drove Londoners mad in their quest for vengeance.
By Permission of Heaven pieces together the untold human story of the Fire and its aftermath -- the panic and terror, the bewilderment and violence and chaos, the search for scapegoats, the rebirth of a city. Above all, it provides an unsurpassable recreation of what happened to schoolchildren and servants, courtiers and clergymen when the streets of London ran with fire and "by ye Permission of Heaven, Hell broke loose upon this Protestant City."
"From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Adrian Tinniswood is the author of His Invention So Fertile: A Life of Christopher Wren and Visions of Power: Ambition and Architecture from Ancient Times to the Present. He is a respected author, lecturer, and broadcaster in Britain and the United States.
Table of Contents
By Permission of Heaven List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Maps
1. The Court of Vulcan
2. The Future Condition of the English Nation
3. God's Bellows
4. A Universal Conclusion
5. Black Towers Mourn
6. And After Three Days' Toil
7. Mighty Merry and Our Fears Over
8. Dreams of Fire Falling
9. Digitus Dei
10. Yes Sir, I am Guilty of It
11. A More Glorious Phoenix
12. Grief Cramps My Heart
13. Consider the Common Calamity
14. Malicious Hearts
Notes
Chronology
Dramatis Person?
Bibliography
Index