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It's interesting to read War of the Worlds, and the descriptions of walking between the towns and villages that would one day merge to form greater London. Ther
by noneeeed 2y ago
It's interesting to read War of the Worlds, and the descriptions of walking between the towns and villages that would one day merge to form greater London. There was all this space between them. Now it's one continuous connerbation.
It's hard to get your head around just how different the geography of the UK was even just in the Victorian/Edwardian eras, and how rapidly it's changed.
- KineticLensman 2y agoThere's another interesting example of this effect in Nicola Griffith's 'Hild' books [0], which fictionalise the early life of Hilda of Whitby [1] in 7thC Britain. Some of the towns that we now recognise (York, Ipswich) already existed, but a lot of the action concerns conflict between small (but real) kingdoms that no longer exist, and that exploits the 'redcrest war streets', i.e. Roman roads, for fast tactical movement. This is one book where I really had to study the map at the beginning to figure out what was going on, even though it is my own country. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hild_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hild_(novel) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_of_Whitby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_of_Whitby
- frereubu 2y agoI remember reading a line from William Blake's diary which talked about him walking "over the fields to Lambeth" from his house in Soho.