which is always accompanied by how we view people who've wandered the night over the centuries and of the night itself. Lewis-Stempel's powers of observation and ability to gloriously express them in writing are treasures. Aber am Ende gibt es eine Liste von sieben "International dark sky reserves", in denen das noch möglich ist. Obviously aimed at the intellectual and students of early English literature, the writing is ponderous and would not hold the attention of persons with a casual interest in the history of London.

Beaumont has written a rambling exploration of people rambling in London at night, and particularly those who have written about rambling people in the past. I started the project from a place of rage, after reading an extract from John Lewis-Stempel’s new book of the same name. Another highlight was the final two chapters, which reveal that Charles Dickens’s frequent night walks were an essential aspect of his writing method (in an apparently similar way to Haruki Murakami’s use of long-distance running to sustain his writing). In between we get Wordsworth’s compositional walkabouts, Tennyson’s dark maidens (although no “Highwayman” and that’s puzzle), Chaucer, William Blake, and Thomas De Quincey. In accordance with The Post Office, the last recommended date for Christmas posting is 18th December (2nd Class) and 20th December (First class).

One could argue the book meandered like a nightwalker through a big city, but that seems overgenerous. It’s not the subject he’s writing about that he wants us to be impressed with, but his own intelligence. When one thinks of the London night in the present age, iconic images of Westminster, Piccadilly and the Thames Skyline are usually the first to emerge.

The joy of Beaumont’s book is the way it illuminates both literature and urban politics through the splendors and panics of their nighttime journeys. I was surprised to read that he has won a prize for nature writing because to me the writing seemed awkward and forced but I must be in the minority - which is fine, we all enjoy different things. There was a contrast in tone between many of the poems prefacing the stories and the stories themselves, whose tone I didn't enjoy as much. And I learned the origin of “curfew,” from “couvre feu,” the requirement to extinguish hearth fires at night. Sorry Mr Beaumont, this wasn't my bag, although I did learn some new bizarre words such as obnubilate!

I enjoyed the notes from individual nights more than the four cores stories, but was left confused by the format. However, as a text that appears to champion the act of aimless wandering over the direct navigation between two points, the central section of the book does appear to suffer from some meandering repetitiveness, although there are still moments of brilliance within those middle chapters. None the less I enjoyed the bits of this book that were poetic and described the beauty of wildlife and creation as seen in Herefordshire, England and France at night time.

I’m not a great nature fan or walker but the sights and sounds (and sometimes smells) are wonderfully evocative.And basing a book around every time someone wrote the words “night” or “nightwalker” throughout history became very repetitive. Although for citizens living away from the main thoroughfares the nights remained “nasty, brutish, and all too long”, as Beaumont neatly observes, for others street lighting completely transformed London. Since this book spends so much time on the social history of London, couldn't there have been some room for this aspect?

Of the four books I've read about walking around England after dark*, this was the best written but the least substantial. As an inveterate London walker (although always by day, hardly ever at night), this was a book I was keen to read.

By the end, it's the philosophical, social and moral ambiguities of the city at night that stayed with me. Despite a certain serious engagement with historical material (that's clearly somewhat restricted), his approach seems to be guided by the rather more cavalier sweep of cultural studies. It means, as others have commented, that it is pretty much a male history - the women who occupied London's streets at night not generally producing much poetry and prose.