Combining a unique overview of metropolitan visual culture with detailed textual analysis, this interdisciplinary study explores the relationship between the two cities which Londoners inhabited: the physical spaces of the metropolis, whose socially stratified and gendered topography was shaped by consumer culture and unregulated capitalism; and an imaginary 'London', an 'Unreal City' which reflected and influenced their understanding of, and actions in, the 'real' environment.

ALAN ROBINSON is Professor of English at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland. He has taught at the Universities of Oxford, Lancaster and Cologne and at all the German Swiss universities.

List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations Unruliness and Improvement Gendered London Capital City A Tale of Two Cities: Dickens's 'London' The Painting of Modern Life Aesthetes and Impressionists Property and Propriety In the Cage Index