The illustration is a red herring or a March hare or something. It is an interesting book but of no relevance today.
“”So Ho! So Ho!” – the huntsman’s cry setting the hare across the Fields …. And then Sir Francis Compton staking out his land from those same declining grasses: Monmouth’s great mansion in the Square: Thomas De Quincey collapsed and near death on a cold doorstep, receiving life and a warm drink from his sweet prostitute: Mozart at 51 Frith Street: Hazlitt dead of a disordered stomach along at No. 6: King Theodore of Corsica garreted not far away and holding court from a chair set on his pauper’s bed – these and many others are the ghosts that stalk that amorphous part of central London, never quite definable within exact street limits, rather an atmosphere than a district, where once the hare was hunted and now the gourmet and in seamier streets the greenhorn form the prey, and which today we still know roughly by its nickname of former years, Soho.”
Beguiling, enigmatic and beautifully written by an author with whom you may not be familiar. I hope you are intrigued.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
Intrigued but also a little disappointed. When I saw the heading of today’s jottings I had assumed that Bertie the beagle was a guest blogger today. I suppose that we will have to wait a little longer!
I am intrigued, but who is the unfamiliar author of this book ?
Prove me wrong but I don’t think you will identify the author using a search engine. The quote is from a book delivered this morning, which is a clue but an obscure clue. It’s no big mystery but the paragraph I quoted is very different from the author’s usual style and I want to read more.The author’s son sometimes reads this blog – another obscure clue.
We have been aware of the wide range of Bertie’s skill base but, I am sorry, my money is on the hare.
Oh no! More cryptic clues, I’m still training my brain to them on the Country Life crosswords.
My only guess so far is Peter Speiser & ‘Soho The Heart of Bohemian London’ ???