London Literary Tours

How society sees women and women see themselves colours everything Woolf wrote, from essays like 'A Room of One’s Own' to experimental novels like Mrs Dalloway and Orlando, which blossomed from her affair with Vita Sackville-West. Part of the 'Bloomsbury Group' of artists and intellectuals, she maintained close associations with Mayfair and St James's, and a significant part of Mrs Dalloway is set here.  

A poet and playwright, Eliot came to London from the US in 1914 and never left. As an avant-garde poet and as a director at the publisher Faber & Faber, he was at the heart of the Bloomsbury literary scene for decades while maintaining many close associations with St James's, not least with the London Library at its heart. His 1922 long poem 'The Waste Land' is widely regarded as the most influential poem of the 20th century.

Published under the name H.D., Doolittle was in the forefront of the new 'Imagist' poetry before World War 1. An American, Doolittle travelled to London soon after her friend Ezra Pound. She was married to English poet Richard Aldington, later forming a lifelong relationship with novelist Bryher (the pen name of Annie Winifred Ellerman). Beside her poetry, Doolittle wrote various works including the autobiographical novel Bid Me to Live.  

Essays and novels poured from Huxley’s pen, driven initially by the need to support his family. In the 1920s, his society friends -- including the adored and despised Nancy Cunard -- found embodiment in novels like Antic Hay, Point Counterpoint and even Brave New World. Huxley's ties with this part of town are many - he lived and worked here - and scenes from his novels are set here. 

Sitwell was one of the most adventurous poets of the twentieth century with works like Façade and Gold Coast Customs - and she edited a significant modernist anthology called Wheels from 1916. A self-proclaimed eccentric, she presided over London's literary society through her salons and as a passionate champion of new poets.

From a working-class background, Lawrence is known primarily for novels like Women in Love, The Rainbow and Lady Chatterley's Lover, which was banned, as Lawrence wrote it, for decades because of its explicit depictions of sex across the boundary of class, and for its language.  Lawrence was also a playwright, an essayist, and a very fine and influential poet. 

A dynamic painter and writer, Lewis was at the forefront of the avant-garde before World War 1, setting up the Rebel Arts Centre and producing Blast, a magazine promoting art and poetry of Vorticism, a movement influenced strongly by Futurism. His novels, including Tarr and The Apes of God, debate the role of the artist in society, the latter satirising the London literary scene and its key figures including Virginia Woolf and Edith Sitwell.

An unbending conservative and Catholic, and eventually a curmudgeon, Waugh found much in modern society to lament and/or skewer hilariously. He was in many ways a creature of Mayfair and St James's, and scenes from his novels are set in the area. His novel Vile Bodies satirises the hedonistic 'Bright Young Things' of the 1920s, as well as a hotel and hotelier, and also embodies the breakdown of his first marriage. 

Cunard grew up with a silver spoon that she spat out to write radical poetry and start her own publishing company. Counting many writers and artists as her lovers, she was a relentless political activist who campaigned against fascism and racism. 

It's hard to imagine literary modernism without Ezra Pound's dynamism and ideas.  He called for artists to "Make it new!" and he led the charge with Imagism and Vorticism. Beside writing his own poetry, including his epic work The Cantos, he did much to garner support for writers he admired, including H.D., Eliot and James Joyce, editing their work and enabling them to get published. 

Novelist, essayist, critic, Macaulay was at the intellectual heart of London in the early 20th century, and her work tackled urgent issues of the day. Her 1918 novel What Not took on eugenics, brainwashing and social caste, and influenced Brave New World by her friend Aldous Huxley.  

A playwright, songwriter and performer who teased high society in his songs and in plays like Private Lives and Blithe Spirit, Coward could be relied on to amuse and provoke. He was a popular artist, unconcerned with movements and trends - offering perhaps an antidote to the high-brow modernists. With abundant wit, Coward could be relied on to amuse and provoke -- and made himself chief antagonist to Edith Sitwell.