Into the London Fog Eerie Tales from the Weird City

As the fog thickens and the smoky dark sweeps across the capital, strange stories emerge from all over the city. A jilted lover returns as a demon to fulfill his revenge in Kensington, and a seance becomes a life and death struggle off Regents Canal. In the borough of Lambeth, stay clear of the Old House in Vauxhall Walk and be careful up in Temple—there’s something not right about the doleful, droning hum of the telegram wires overhead . . . Join Elizabeth Dearnley on this atmospheric tour through the Big Smoke, a city which has long fueled the imagination of writers of the weird and supernormal. Waiting in the shadowy streets are tales from writers such as Charlotte Riddell, Lettie Galbraith, and Violet Hunt, who delight in twisting the urban myths and folk stories of the city into pieces of masterful suspense and intrigue. This collection will feature a map motif and notes before each story, giving readers the real-world context for these hauntings and encounters, and allowing the modern reader to seek out the sites themselves—should they dare.

Elizabeth Dearnley teaches the history of fairy tales at University College London and has curated several projects exploring how folk stories interact with the modern world. She is the co-creator of The Secret Diary of Bloomsbury, which collects submissions from visitors and residents of Bloomsbury to tell a collective story of life in the area.

CONTENTS
Introduction 7

Temple
  The Telegram 19
  Violet Hunt

Regent’s Park
  In the Séance Room 53
  Lettice Galbraith

Kensington
  The Demon Lover 77
  Elizabeth Bowen

Mayfair
  The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth 89
  Rhoda Broughton

Piccadilly
  The Dressmaker’s Doll 107
  Agatha Christie

Soho
  War, an extract from London In My Time 133
  Thomas Burke

The Strand
  Street Haunting 153
  Virginia Woolf

Holborn
  Pugilist vs Poet, an extract from A Long Way from Home 171
  Claude McKay

Stoke Newington
  N 181
  Arthur Machen

Whitechapel
  The Lodger 215
  Marie Belloc Lowndes

Waterloo
  My Girl and the City 257
  Sam Selvon

Crystal Palace
  The Mystery of the Semi-Detached 269
  Edith Nesbit

Vauxhall
  The Old House in Vauxhall Walk 277
  Charlotte Riddell

Putney (and Bloomsbury)
  The Chippendale Mirror 303
  E. F. Benson

Peckham
  Spring-Heeled Jack 321
  Anonymous