The Necropolis Railway

Author: Andrew Martin
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571252222
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
' A brilliant murder mystery set in Edwardian London about a railway line that runs only to a massive cemetery.' Daily Mirror When railwayman Jim Stringer moves to the garish and tawdry London of 1903, he finds his duties are confined to a mysterious graveyard line. The men he works alongside have formed an instant loathing for him - and his predecessor has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Can Jim work out what is going on before he too is travelling on a one-way coffin ticket aboard the Necropolis Railway? 'Guaranteed to make the flesh creep and the skin crawl, a masterful novel about a mad, clanking, fog-bound world.' Simon Winchester 'A murderous conspiracy of a plot graced with style, wit and the sharp, true taste of a time gone by ... So beautifully nuanced and so effortlessly pleasurable to read that you almost want to keep it a personal secret.' Independent on Sunday

London's Necropolis

Author: John M. Clarke
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781840337334
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Book Description

Underground, Overground

Author: Andrew Martin
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847658075
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
Why is the Victoria Line so hot? What is an Electrical Multiple Unit? Is it really possible to ride from King's Cross to King's Cross on the Circle line? The London Underground is the oldest, most sprawling and illogical metropolitan transport system in the world, the result of a series of botch-jobs and improvisations.Yet it transports over one billion passengers every year - and this figure is rising. It is iconic, recognised the world over, and loved and despised by Londoners in equal measure. Blending reportage, humour and personal encounters, Andrew Martin embarks on a wonderfully engaging social history of London's underground railway system (which despite its name, is in fact fifty-five per cent overground). Underground, Overground is a highly enjoyable, witty and informative history of everything you need to know about the Tube.

Steam Trains Today

Author: Andrew Martin
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1782834893
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
'A delightful book ... the perfect companion as you wait for the 8.10 from Hove' Observer After the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, many railways were gradually shut down. Rural communities were isolated and steam trains slowly gave way to diesel and electric traction. But some people were not prepared to let the romance of train travel die. Thanks to their efforts, many lines passed into community ownership and are now booming with new armies of dedicated volunteers. Andrew Martin meets these volunteer enthusiasts, finding out just what it is about preserved railways that makes people so devoted. From the inspiration for Thomas the Tank Engine to John Betjeman's battle against encroaching modernity, Steam Trains Today will take you on a heart-warming journey across Britain from Aviemore to Epping.

Unprepared To Die

Author: Paul Slade
Publisher: Soundcheck Books
ISBN: 099294807X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 151

Book Description
The Gory Stories Behind The Murder Ballads Cheerfully vulgar, revelling in gore, and always with an eye on the main chance, murder ballads are tabloid newspapers set to music, carrying word of the latest ‘orrible murders to an insatiable public. Victims are bludgeoned, stabbed or shot in every verse and killers often hanged, but the songs themselves never die. Instead, they mutate – morphing to suit local place names as they criss cross the Atlantic and continue to fascinate each generation’s biggest musical stars. Paul Slade traces this fascinating genre’s history through eight of its greatest songs. Stagger Lee’s “biographers” alone include Duke Ellington, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Dr John, The Clash and Nick Cave. No two tell his story in quite the same way. Covering eight classic murder ballads, including “Knoxville Girl”, “Tom Dooley” and “Frankie & Johnny”, Slade investigates the real-life murder which inspired each song and traces its musical development down the decades. Billy Bragg, The Bad Seeds’ Mick Harvey, Laura Cantrell, Rennie Sparks of The Handsome Family and a host of other leading musicians add their own insights.

Do Not Alight Here

Author: Ben Pedroche
Publisher: Capital Transport
ISBN: 9781854143525
Category : Subway stations
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Abandoned tunnels, derelict stations, old trackbeds and much more. All are included in this entertaining and informative book that guides the reader through London's many remaining disused railway structures.

The Blackpool Highflyer

Author: Andrew Martin
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571252230
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Book Description
'A steamy whodunnit . . . This may well be the best fiction about the railways since Dickens.' Independent on Sunday 'Genuinely gripping . . . The sort of thing D. H. Lawrence might have written had he been less verbose or been blessed with a sense of humour.' Peter Parker, Evening Standard (Books of the Year) A superbly atmospheric thriller of sabotage, suspicion and steam, The Blackpool Highflyer brings a new twist to tales of Edwardian England and amateur sleuthing. Assigned to drive holidaymakers to the seaside resort of Blackpool in the hot summer of 1905, Jim Stringer is happy to have left behind the grime and danger of life in London. But his dreams of beer and pretty women are soon shattered - when his high-speed train meets a huge millstone on the line . . . 'A clear winner in literary crime writing . . . Dazzling attention to detail and quality writing from one of our best contemporary male novelists.' Daily Express

Necropolis

Author: Basil Copper
Publisher: 20th Century
ISBN: 9781939140500
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"A feverish gaslight gothic that's as rich in Sherlock Holmes-like atmosphere as it is in ghoulish doings." - Kirkus Reviews "A dark, exotic Gothic thriller . . . Excellent!" - Booklist "A gothic mystery in the truest sense. . . . Copper has written in the grand tradition of A. Conan Doyle and created a spellbinding narrative of mystery and suspense." - The Press-Courier Set in an alternate Victorian London, where Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are not just fictional characters, Basil Copper's Necropolis (1980) is a tale of mystery and intrigue worthy of Arthur Conan Doyle or Wilkie Collins. Private detective Clyde Beatty, a rival of the great Holmes, has been hired by the lovely Angela Meredith to inquire into her father's suspicious death. As Beatty's investigation unfolds, the danger intensifies: more murders ensue, and attempts are made on his life. It is clear there is more to Mr. Meredith's death than meets the eye, and it may have something to do with the brazen robbery of a fortune in gold bullion. The clues lead Beatty to the eerie Brookwood Cemetery, where fatal secrets lie hidden in the catacombs beneath a city of the dead. . . . This edition of Copper's chilling Victorian Gothic mystery is the first in more than three decades and includes the original illustrations by Stephen E. Fabian and a new introduction by Stephen Jones. Copper's tale of Lovecraftian horror, The Great White Space (1974) is also available from Valancourt Books.

War on the Line

Author: Bernard Darwin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description

Necropolis

Author: Catharine Arnold
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1847394930
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
From Roman burial rites to the horrors of the plague, from the founding of the great Victorian cemeteries to the development of cremation and the current approach of metropolitan society towards death and bereavement -- including more recent trends to displays of collective grief and the cult of mourning, such as that surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales -- NECROPOLIS: LONDON AND ITS DEAD offers a vivid historical narrative of this great city's attitude to going the way of all flesh. As layer upon layer of London soil reveals burials from pre-historic and medieval times, the city is revealed as one giant grave, filled with the remains of previous eras -- pagan, Roman, medieval, Victorian. This fascinating blend of archaeology, architecture and anecdote includes such phenomena as the rise of the undertaking trade and the pageantry of state funerals; public executions and bodysnatching. Ghoulishly entertaining and full of fascinating nuggets of information, Necropolis leaves no headstone unturned in its exploration of our changing attitudes to the deceased among us. Both anecdotal history and cultural commentary, Necropolis will take its place alongside classics of the city such as Peter Ackroyd's LONDON.