The London Rich: The Creation of a Great City, fro

After the great fire of 1666, a new London thrust out from the old confines of the city and the narrow precinct of Westminster. The rich were eager to escape the pollution of the riverside, the overcrowding and the slums. They colonized the surrounding country villages and built over the cornfields and pasture and market gardens, claiming them as their own and dictating their character for centuries to come.

Where they went depended on who they were: different districts appealed to different groups. The patricians clustered in St. James's and later in Belgravia to be near the Court; the colonials from the East and West Indies settled Marylebone, convenient as it was for the City. The Jewish community chose Bayswater and Hampstead.

Peter Thorold's masterly book, embellished with maps and illustrations, reveals where the rich lived, why they moved from one district to another and what went on behind the doors of their magnificent houses. By examining the movement of the wealthy of London, Thorold illuminates the subtle but inexorable shaping of this great city.