Going Astray

'Going astray, as this intelligent and provocative study proves, is the most rewarding technique for not-arriving, for detouring with purpose, recovering the dark soul of London, and the fictive ghosts who lead us by the elbow. Everything is lost but nothing vanishes. Charles Dickens, triumphantly rescued from the febrile embrace of heritage, the cold kiss of academia, sets out at twilight to tramp those unforgiving miles, the fathomless labyrinth of his imagination

Iain Sinclair, author of Lights Out for the Territory andLondon Orbital

Among the numerous books on Dickens London, Going Astrayis unique in combining detailed topography and biography with close textual analysis and theoretically informed critiques of most of the novelists major works. In Jeremy Tamblings intriguing and illuminating synthesis, the London A-Z meets Nietzsche, Benjamin and Derrida.

Rick Allen, author of The Moving Pageant: A Literary Sourcebook on London Street-Life, 1700-1914

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