A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice A Telegraph Editor’s Choice An Evening Standard “Best Books about London” Selection In popular imagination, London is a city of fog. The classic London fogs, the thick yellow “pea-soupers,” were born in the industrial age of the early nineteenth century. Christine L. Corton tells the story of these epic London fogs, their dangers and beauty, and their lasting effects on our culture and imagination. “Engrossing and magnificently researched…Corton’s book combines meticulous social history with a wealth of eccentric detail. Thus we learn that London’s ubiquitous plane trees were chosen for their shiny, fog-resistant foliage. And since Jack the Ripper actually went out to stalk his victims on fog-free nights, filmmakers had to fake the sort of dank, smoke-wreathed London scenes audiences craved. It’s discoveries like these that make reading London Fog such an unusual, enthralling and enlightening experience.” ―Miranda Seymour, New York Times Book Review “Corton, clad in an overcoat, with a linklighter before her, takes us into the gloomier, long 19th century, where she revels in its Gothic grasp. Beautifully illustrated, London Fog delves fascinatingly into that swirling miasma.” ―Philip Hoare, New Statesman “Engrossing and magnificently researched… Corton’s book combines meticulous social history with a wealth of eccentric detail. Thus we learn that London’s ubiquitous plane trees were chosen for their shiny, fog-resistant foliage. And since Jack the Ripper actually went out to stalk his victims on fog-free nights, filmmakers had to fake the sort of dank, smoke-wreathed London scenes audiences craved. It’s discoveries like these that make reading London Fog such an unusual, enthralling and enlightening experience.” ― Miranda Seymour , New York Times Book Review “Corton’s eye for social history is superb. We are led with wit and intelligence through a London in which clerks in counting-houses are forbidden to leave their books lying open lest the sooty fogs blacken the pages… Corton is excellent on the extent to which, in the twentieth century and since, the close association between Victorian London and Gothic fog has clouded perceptions of Victorian life and art.” ― Richard Smyth , Times Literary Supplement “Christine Corton takes a subject that is now scarcely more than a heritage item―like gaslight and hansom cabs―and puts it where it belongs among the great public-health movements of the 19th and 20th centuries… Of course, fog was not solely a public-health problem. With the help of wonderful contemporary illustrations, Corton vividly describes the chaos it brought―pedestrians groping, traffic crawling, accidents, crime and drunkenness soaring. The melting, blurring, looming transformations of fog seemed to symbolize the dissolution of society itself. Writers saw the possibilities, and Corton pursues their metaphorical fogs through every kind of moral, psychological and social disintegration. Charles Dickens, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, all are here―plus a mass of fascinating and forgotten popular literature―their cultural meanings perceptively analyzed… This is a rich and multifaceted book.” ― The Economist “In Christine L. Corton’s beautifully illustrated London Fog: The Biography , the mysterious mist takes center stage in all its noxious, stygian, primeval delicacy…Drawing on novels and poems, paintings and films, Corton’s [book] is crammed with thought-provoking elucidations. It sounds hokey to say it, but she has shed a bright light on the fog.” ― Alexandra Mullen , Wall Street Journal “Corton’s wonderfully detailed and original exploration of foggy London ranges from the earliest mists to the last great pea-souper of 1962… Her account is rich in memorable anecdotes and descriptions, gleaned from popular culture, literature, journals and contemporary letters as well as cartoons and art history: the book is also splendidly illustrated.” ― P. D. Smith , The Guardian “Christine L. Corton, clad in an overcoat, with a linklighter before her, takes us into the gloomier, long 19th century, where she revels in its Gothic grasp. Beautifully illustrated, London Fog delves fascinatingly into that swirling miasma.” ― Philip Hoare , New Statesman “Brilliant… Corton has a deft historical, literary and visual eye. While tracing the birth, maturity and death of fog, she pays careful attention to the ways it affected everyday lives and locations… But her real interest is in the way fog played in the imagination. For centuries, she shows, novelists, essayists, cartoonists and painters used fog as a metaphor for human relationships and the moral order… Corton’s book is an unsentimental and elegant reflection on a world that has passed.” ― Joanna Bourke , Daily Telegraph “In London Fog , Christine L. Corton guides us through the history of the ‘pea-souper’ (the phrase first used in print in 1849 by Herman Melvi