London in fiction

Many notable works of fiction are set in London, the capital city of England and of the United Kingdom. The following is a selection; there are too many such fictional works for it to be possible to compile a complete list.

Folklore

 * Dick Whittington and His Cat (c. 1354–1423)

Early fiction

 * Geoffrey Chaucer — The Canterbury Tales (late 14th century)
 * Daniel Defoe — A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), Moll Flanders (1722)

19th century fiction

 * Many of Charles Dickens' most famous novels are at least partially set in London; including: Oliver Twist (1838), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1850), Bleak House (1853), Little Dorrit (1857), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1861), Our Mutual Friend (1865), and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)
 * William Makepeace Thackeray — Vanity Fair (1847)
 * Mark Twain — The Prince and the Pauper (1881)
 * Henry James — The Princess Casamassima (1886), A London Life (1888), What Maisi e Knew (1897), In the Cage (1898)
 * Oscar Wilde — The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
 * H. G. Wells — The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898)

20th century fiction

 * G. K. Chesterton — his allegorical works The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) and The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) both feature surreal depictions of London
 * Joseph Conrad — The Secret Agent (1907)
 * J. M. Barrie — Peter and Wendy (1904–1911)
 * Marie Belloc Lowndes — The Lodger (1913)
 * D. H. Lawrence — Sons and Lovers (1913)
 * P. G. Wodehouse — in his Jeeves and Wooster novels (1919 onwards), Wooster lives mainly in London, and is a member of the Drones Club
 * T. S. Eliot — his long poem The Waste Land (1922) makes frequent reference to the Unreal City
 * Virginia Woolf — Mrs Dalloway (1925)
 * Evelyn Waugh — Vile Bodies (1930)
 * Aldous Huxley — Brave New World (1932)
 * P. L. Travers — Mary Poppins (1934) Takes place on Cherry Tree Lane and at the Bank of England
 * Patrick Hamilton — 20,000 Streets Under the Sky (1935)
 * George Orwell — Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
 * Cameron McCabe — The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor (1937)
 * T. H. White — The Sword in the Stone (1938)
 * Patrick Hamilton — Hangover Square (1941)
 * Patrick White — The Living and the Dead (1941)
 * Norman Collins — London Belongs to Me (1945)
 * Elizabeth Bowen — The Heat of the Day (1949)
 * Agatha Christie — Crooked House (1949)
 * John Wyndham — The Day of the Triffids (1951)
 * Graham Greene — The End of the Affair (1951), The Destructors (1954)
 * Dodie Smith — The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956)
 * Michael Bond — A Bear Called Paddington (1958)
 * Colin MacInnes — Absolute Beginners (1959), Mr Love and Justice (1960)
 * Iris Murdoch — A Severed Head (1961)
 * Muriel Spark — The Girls of Slender Means (1963)
 * Doris Lessing — The Four-Gated City (1969)
 * Michael Moorcock — the Jerry Cornelius stories (from 1969): Mother London (1988), King of the City (2000)
 * Thomas Pynchon — Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
 * Maureen Duffy — Capital: a Fiction (1975)
 * Julian Barnes — Metroland (1980)
 * Peter Ackroyd — The Great Fire of London  (1982), Hawksmoor (1985), English Music (1992), The House of Doctor Dee (1993), Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994)
 * Alan Moore — V for Vendetta (1982 – 1989), From Hell (1989–1996)
 * Martin Amis — Money (1984), London Fields (1989)
 * Iain Banks — Walking on Glass (1985)
 * Tom Clancy — Patriot Games (1987)
 * Hanif Kureishi — The Buddha of Suburbia (1987)
 * Vertigo (DC Comics) — Hellblazer (1988–2013)
 * Salman Rushdie — The Satanic Verses (1989)
 * Josephine Hart — Damage (1991)
 * Bernice Rubens — A Solitary Grief (1991)
 * Barbara Vine — King Solomon's Carpet (1991)
 * Nick Hornby — Fever Pitch - A Fan's Life (1992), High Fidelity (1995), About a Boy (1998)
 * Will Self — Grey Area (1994)
 * Helen Fielding — Bridget Jones's Diary (1996)
 * Neil Gaiman — Neverwhere (1996) is set partly in real London, and partly in an alternative 'London Below'
 * Anthony Frewin — London Blues (1997), is set mainly in Soho at the time of the Profumo affair
 * Ian McEwan — Enduring Love (1997)
 * J. K. Rowling — Harry Potter series (1997–2007) features fictional London locations: the hidden Diagon Alley, and Platform $9 3/4$ at King's Cross
 * Kouta Hirano — Hellsing manga series (1997–2009) casts London as the story's main setting
 * William Boyd — Armadillo (1998)

21st century fiction

 * Hanif Kureishi — Gabriel's Gift (2001)
 * John Lanchester — Mr Phillips (2001), Capital (2012)
 * Bernard Cornwell — Gallows Thief (2001)
 * Philip Reeve — Mortal Engines (2001), A Darkling Plain (2006), Fever Crumb (2009)
 * Zadie Smith — White Teeth (2000), NW (2012)
 * Miles Tredinnick — Topless,  (2001)
 * Iain Banks — Dead Air (2002)
 * William Gibson — Pattern Recognition (2003)
 * Zoë Heller — Notes on a Scandal (2003)
 * Adam Thirlwell — Politics (2003)
 * Neal Stephenson — The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver (2003), The Confusion (2004), The System of the World (2004))
 * Monica Ali — Brick Lane (2004)
 * Ben Elton — Past Mortem (2004)
 * A. N. Wilson — My Name Is Legion (2004)
 * Nick Hornby — A Long Way Down (2005)
 * Ian McEwan — Saturday (2005)
 * Will Self — The Book of Dave (2006)
 * Charles Finch — A Beautiful Blue Death (2007), The September Society (2008), The Fleet Street Murders (2009), A Stranger in Mayfair (2010)
 * Mary Novik — Conceit (2007)
 * Charlie Fletcher — The Stoneheart (2008)
 * Anthony Horowitz — Stormbreaker, Eagle Strike, Scorpia, Ark Angel (2008)
 * Ruth Rendell — Portobello (2008)
 * Audrey Niffenegger — Her Fearful Symmetry (2009)
 * DC Comics — Wonder Woman is based in London following The New 52 relaunch of her ongoing series (2011–present)
 * Jared Anthony Patterson — My Journey through the Gay Underground of London: Memoir of a Tottenham Boy (2011)
 * Ben Aaronovitch — Rivers of London (2011), Moon Over Soho (2011), Whispers Under Ground (2012), Broken Homes (2013) The Hanging Tree (2016) The Furthest Station (2017)
 * Mike Bartlett — 13 (2011)
 * Daniel O'Malley — The Rook (2012)
 * Robert Galbraith — The Cuckoo's Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014) Career of Evil (2015) Lethal White (TBC)
 * Anakana Schofield — Martin John (2016)
 * Robert J. Sherman — Bumblescratch (2016)
 * John Roman Baker — Time of Obsessions (2017)
 * Cassandra Clare — The Clockwork Angel (2010), The Clockwork Prince (2011), The Clockwork Princess (2013)
 * Jonathan Stroud⁣ — ⁣The Screaming Staircase (2013), The Whispering Skull (2014), The Hollow Boy (2015), The Creeping Shadow (2016), The Empty Grave (2017)
 * Deborah Hewitt — The Nightjar (2019)
 * Garth Nix — The Left-Handed Booksellers of London (2020)

Nursery rhymes
Several nursery rhymes mention places in London.
 * London Bridge is mentioned in London Bridge is falling down.
 * Oranges and Lemons mentions several London Churches.
 * Pop Goes the Weasel one version refers to the Eagle pub on the City Road.