London Perceived

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London is revealed in the mind, the heart, and the eye with eloquence and character in this handsome volume -- a collaboration of text by V. S. Pritchett, one of England's most brilliant writers, and photographs by Evelyn Hoffer, whose camera artistry is internationally respected. Here is a witty and knowing distillation of London experienced -- a panorama of its history, art, literature, and life. This is the city that Londoners know, a paradox of grandeur and grime, a place of bustling markets and tranquil parks, of ancient and modern, of palaces and pubs, docks and railroad depots. Great Londoners of the past walk in this pages -- Wren, Pepys, Defoe, Hogarth, Johnson, Dickens. And here are the faces of the people who inhabit London today -- milkmen and master mariners, dockers and shopkeepers, messengers, Chelsea pensioners, and, inevitably, a London policeman. Mr. Pritchett's text is masterfully complemented by the photographs that demonstrate Miss Hofer's artistic eye. Her visual capture of one city in The Stones of Florence is now equaled by her illuminating reflections of London. There is, as well, an analysis of the Londoner himself, enigmatic and enduring, with his reverence for law, his pleasure in royalty and ritual, his respect for argument, and his toleration of eccentrics. In these loving, yet penetrating recognitions of a great city's past and present, London lives.