London a treasure-trove of literary landmarks

Apart from Russia and France, Great Britain is arguably the most literary country in Europe. Concentrating on just one infinitessimal area — London — one will find innumerable literary associations. The City, indeed, is that area of the capital that is dominated by its greatest landmark, St. Paul’s Cathedral toward the east of the city.

The best way to begin a literary tour is to start on the Strand, marked by two celebrated churches: St. Clement’s Dane and St. Mary-le-Bowe (around which, since it is smack in the middle of the street, traffic swirls), and walk east to Fleet Street, so named because in the old days it lay next to the Thames River. During the past century it has become the publishing hub of the country. Charles Lamb, the essayist, once remarked: “It is impossible to be dull in Fleet Street.”

Along this famous street lies the Middle Temple, which combined with the Inner Temple in 1608. Its members included Edmund Burke, politician and writer; Sir Walter Raleigh, explorer and author of “History of the World;” Henry Fielding, who authored the racy picaresque novel “Tom Jones;” Thomas Moore, the Irish poet; Nicholas Rowe, a Poet Laureate; John Ford, playwright to whom is attributed “`Tis a Pity She’s a Whore;” John Evelyn, the diarist; and William Congreve, responsible for one of the greatest Restoration comedies “The Way of the World.” And this is not to mention William Thackeray, the 19th century novelist who penned “Pendennis” and “Vanity Fair,” and William Cowper, author of many of the Protestant Church’s best-loved hymns.

The Inner Temple numbered among its members Francis Beaumont, a contemporary of Shakespeare; James Boswell, the indefatigable biographer of the redoubtable Dr. Johnson; and William Wycherley, the author of the wickedly funny “The Country Wife,” a play still intermittently revived.

A writer indissolubly linked with this sacred area was the feisty Irishman Oliver Goldsmith (whose grave lies within the precincts of the Middle Temple). Goldsmith, a tripartite genius, has the distinction of being the author of a great poem, “The Deserted Village;” a great novel, “The Vicar of Wakefield;” and a great play, “She Stoops to Conquer.” A member of the Middle Temple until his death in 1768, Goldsmith, joined by colleagues Burke, Johnson and the painter Joshua Reynolds, met regularly in a kind of club. Another regular, the actor David Garrick, quipped that Goldsmith “wrote like an angel, but talked like Poor Poll.”

Nearby was Christ’s Hospital, where Lamb befriended Samuel Taylor Coleridge, famous for his “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Christabel” among other poems.

Along Ludgate Hill, which ascends to the classic facade of St. Paul’s itself, is an ancient church called St. Dunstan’s-in-the-West, where Izaac Walton, author of the fisherman’s guide “The Compleat Angler,” was “Scavenger, Quitsman and Sidesman.” He is buried at Winchester Cathedral, however. In a niche to the right of the main portal of the church is an ancient statue of Queen Elizabeth I, a great patroness of writers.

Close to Ludgate Circus (a reminder of Roman London) is Johnson’s Court, where the old curmudgeon responsible for the great dictionary lived from 1748 to 1759.

On the south side of Fleet Street is the Church of St. Bride’s, whose “wedding cake” spire may be spotted from a distance. Rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666, it was blitzed during World War II and since wonderfully restored. Its literary claim to fame is that Samuel Pepys, one of the pleasantest and most intimate of diarists, was baptized here. Inside is a tablet to the memory of novelist Samuel Richardson, one of the founders of the English novel, among whose works is “Pamela.”

At the heart of this district, of course, is St. Paul’s itself, a huge structure (the third to occupy the site) completed in 1710 after plans by Sir Christopher Wren, who is entombed in the crypt. Also in the crypt are the ashes of two well-known writers: Walter de la Mare and Sir Max Beerbohm, whose most famous work, “Zuleika Dobson,” is a caricature of life at Oxford University. In the original church was buried Sir Philip Sidney, the poet of “Astrophel and Stella.”

Inside the cathedral itself is a statue of Dr. Johnson decked out in a Roman toga. Incidentally, the wrong date of his funeral is inscribed insofar as Boswell tells us it occurred on June 13, 1785. John Donne, the metaphysical poet, gave many an eloquent sermon here. One other literary reminder is the plaque dedicated to the memory of Sir Matthew Barrie, author of “The Little Minister” and “Quality Street.” And in Faith Chapel is a memorial to the mystic poet and painter William Blake. Not far from St. Paul’s John Milton, who labored over “Paradise Lost” and its sequel “Paradise Regained,” was born. He is buried, however, in St. Giles’ Church just north of the newly minted Barbican Plaza in an area devastated by World War II bombs.

If one walks north from St. Giles, Cripplegate, he will stumble on an ancient cemetery, Bunhill Fields, where John Bunyan (“The Pilgrim’s Progress”), Blake and Daniel, Defoe (“Robinson Crusoe”) lie peacefully under the ground. Across the street is the chapel of John Wesley, the Methodist reformer.

Retracing one’s steps to the vicinity of the Tower of London on the banks of the Thames, the intrepid traveler will confront All Hallows’ Barkynge-by-the-Tower, from whose spire Pepys watched the 1666 conflagration consume most of the city. Geoffrey Chaucer was born in the vicinity, but he is buried in Westminster Abbey, an honor bestowed not because of his literary excellence (after all, he had written “The Canterbury Tales”) but because he was the Clerk of the Works (in which capacity he was instrumental in restoring Windsor Castle).

In the Church of St. Peter in Gracechurch Street, George Borrow (author of “Wild Wales”) was married to May Clarke in 1840. At No. 35 Cornhill hard by is a plaque to Thomas Gray, who penned one of the most quoted and quotable poems in the English language “Elegy in a Country Churchyard.” Unimpressed by his abilities, Dr. Johnson cuttingly proclaimed that Gray “was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great.”