A tale of one city: the London of Charles Dickens

Though Charles Dickens fell out of love with London in his later days, the metropolis plays the main character in most of his books. He mentions London Bridge in nine novels, and the Palace of Westminster in 14. How do we know this? We mapped every London landmark his books ever mentioned, of course. (If you're feeling belatedly festive, you can also explore our map of A Christmas Carol locations.)

Strangely, Dickens never namechecked a single London railway station in his novels, despite living in the throes of the railwaymania era. He also never rode on the London Underground — not as far as we know, anyway. He did, however, have plenty to say about railways as a whole, including the fact that station-bought pies were bloody awful.

Beers were something the author got on better with; Dickens is well-known for having apparently sunk a brew in most historical London pubs. We tracked all of the boozers that crept into his books (as well as those he inspired) — and suggest a Dickensian pub crawl to boot. Any Dickens-themed tour you do take of this fair city will be in the footsteps of countless fans who went before you. After all, Dickens tourism was already a thing while the great man himself was still alive.

Image: Matt Brown