In this brilliant work of literary investigation, Matthew Beaumont shines a light on the shadowy perambulations of poets, novelists and thinkers: the fetid, treacherous streets known to Chaucer and Shakespeare; William Blake and his ecstatic peregrinations; the feverish ramblings of opium addict Thomas De Quincey; and, among the lamp-lit literary throng, the supreme nightwalker Charles Dickens. We discover how the nocturnal city has inspired some and served as a balm or narcotic to others. In each case, the city is revealed as a place divided between work and pleasure, the affluent and the indigent, where the entitled and the desperate rub shoulders.

Part literary criticism, part social history, part polemic, this is a haunting addition to the canon of psychogeography. * Financial Times *
A wonderful book, that has many fascinating things to say about the night-time life of our capital down the ages. Rarely has a book on the subject of darkness been so illuminating; all insomniacs should read it. * Evening Standard *
He releases an ancient, urban miasma that rises from the page, untroubled by electric illumination, allowing us to inhale what Shakespeare's contemporary Thomas Dekker called "that thick tobacco-breath which the rheumaticke night throws abroad" * Independent *
An important and lively book. * Times Higher Education Supplement *
Magnificent -- Ian Thomson * New Statesman *

Matthew Beaumont, a Professor of English Literature at University College London, is the author of several books for Verso, including The Walker: On Finding and Losing Yourself in the Modern City (2020) and How We Walk: Frantz Fanon and the Politics of the Body (forthcoming, 2024). He is also the author of Lev Shestov: Philosopher of the Sleepless Night (2021). For Verso, he has co-authored The Task of the Critic: Terry Eagleton in Dialogue (2009) and co-edited Restless Cities (2010).