LONDON, Jan 16 — I like bookstores that shelve fiction, nonfiction and travel guides together by destination.
But can you use a novel as a guidebook? Certainly tourists flock to fictional locations like platform 9 3/4 in King’s Cross Station. But what can you learn from following the footsteps of a fictional character? To see, I followed the route of Oliver Twist as he entered London for the first time.
Oliver Twist, published serially from 1837 to 1839, was always a guidebook of sorts, taking Dickens’ middle- and upper-class readers away from the familiar streets of the London they knew and into the world that lurked down dark alleys.
I’m an American but grew up in London, arriving there as a five-year-old. The film of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! was released the month I arrived, and I was soon taken to see it. Catchy tunes aside, I found it terrifying: Vicious, treacherous evil hiding around every corner, a child in peril in every scene and a rather bland hero with absolutely no superpowers beyond being secretly middle-class. What possible use could that be against Sikes and his dog? Besides, being new to the country, I wasn’t quite sure to what extent these conditions might still prevail.
Reading the book as an adult made me want to connect Dickens’ work with the real London, to see if I could find the city it described. The novel’s description of Oliver’s first moments in town (quite different from my own at the age of five: orange-coloured streetlights on a foggy motorway with tiny cars going the wrong way) includes recognisable street names and a route I could more or less follow on a modern map.
Oliver meets the Artful Dodger just outside of London. Tired, hungry and naive, he’s happy to accept the dodgy Dodger’s offer of food and the possibility of lodgings with a “‘spectable old gentleman” and is thus sucked into a criminal gang.
For the book’s reader, it is a more ominous progression: A trip from bad to worse, from frying pan to fire, from leafy suburb to notorious slum, a step on the all-too-likely journey from workhouse to gallows, from Islington to Fagin’s live/work loft in the Saffron Hill Rookery. From Oliver’s point of view, the Dodger is a terrible tour guide.
Charles Dickens, however, is pretty good. Names of roads have changed. Rivers have been redirected underground, and 180 years of development and decay have changed a landmark or two. But Dickens’ description of Oliver’s entry into London is easy to follow. And following Oliver’s journey connects London’s 19th-century geography to the modern city.
Oliver Twist (and 1830s map) in hand, I follow Oliver into London
It was nearly 11 o’clock when they reached the turnpike at Islington. They crossed from the Angel into St John’s Road; struck down the small street which terminates at Sadler’s Wells Theatre; through Exmouth Street and Coppice Row; down the little court by the side of the workhouse; across the classic ground which once bore the name of Hockley-in-the-Hole; thence into Little Saffron Hill; and so into Saffron Hill the Great: along which the Dodger scudded at a rapid pace, directing Oliver to follow close at his heels. — Charles Dickens
The Turnpike at Islington
Animals being driven from the countryside to the stockyards of Smithfield Market would have entered the city at this point.
The Angel
Originally the name of a coaching inn on what was then the edge of London. There’s still a pub called the Angel near the site, and the nearby Northern Line station is named for the inn. For Dickens it was where “London began in earnest.”
Sadler’s Wells Theatre
From the 17th century, there was a spa at Sadler’s Wells. The theatre grew up to entertain those who came to take the waters. In 1838 — even before the serialisation of Oliver Twist had been completed — a theatrical version of the story was being performed there.
Exmouth Street (now Exmouth Market)
Oliver’s route is particularly well served by street markets in the present day. Chapel Market is held on a street near the site of the Angel, while Leather Lane is conveniently close to Fagin’s hideout. And Oliver went right through the site of Exmouth Market. All have stalls serving a wide variety of street foods, augmenting neighbourhood restaurants.
Coppice Row (now, roughly, the Farringdon Road)
The culinary theme continues with the Quality Chop House (opened in 1869), and the Eagle, which has been serving Italian food alongside pints of beer (and glasses of wine) since 1991, and was one of the first of the then unusual pub/restaurant hybrids to be described as a “gastropub.”
Hockley-in-the-Hole (now Ray Street)
In the 18th century it had been the scene of organised dog fights, bear baiting and boxing matches, attracting drovers and butchers from Smithfield as well as upper-class “sporting” gentlemen.
Saffron Hill
Named for the medieval fields of crocuses whose stigmas provide the spice saffron, the neighbourhood was agricultural through the 17th century. By Oliver’s time, it was densely populated with dilapidated housing: “A dirtier or more wretched place he had never seen. The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours.” — The New York Times
*Nicholas Noyes is the author of The Little Brown Book of Corporate Advancement and 50 Places to See Before You Die & 50 Places That Are a Lot More Fun. His photographs have appeared in Gothamist and Londonist, and in Tiny Yarn Animals.
