The London Of Charles Dickens: Mapped

Charles Dickens is intimately associated with London like no other author. The city features in all of his novels, usually as the main setting.

Two years ago, we set ourselves the task of reading every novel and mapping their London locations. Here are the results. We’ve also included the many addresses that Dickens called home, so you can see how his novels often feature those areas he was most familiar with.

Which is the most Londony Dickens Novel?

We’d always thought of Our Mutual Friend or Bleak House as most evocative of London. Perhaps they are in terms of descriptive power. Yet for number of local locations, Barnaby Rudge tops our list with 105 different London locations — about one new location every six pages. Actually, we’ve cheated a bit and included Chigwell. The town is technically in Essex, but it’s right on the border of modern London, and is also on the tube map. Were we to remove its four distinct locations from the map, then Barnaby Rudge would tie with Pickwick Papers on 101 locations.

• Barnaby Rudge (1841): 105 locations
• Pickwick Papers (1837): 101 locations
• Nicholas Nickleby (1838): 86 locations
• David Copperfield (1850): 79 locations
• Oliver Twist (1838): 74 locations
• Bleak House (1853): 69 locations
• Our Mutual Friend (1865): 68 locations
• Little Dorrit (1857): 63 locations
• Dombey and Son (1848): 53 locations
• Great Expectations (1861): 50 locations
• Martin Chuzzlewit (1843): 49 locations
• The Old Curiosity Shop (1841): 35 locations
• A Tale of Two Cities (1859): 29 locations
• Christmas Books (1843-1848): 16 locations
• The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870): 12 locations
• Hard Times (1854): 9 locations

Which is Dickens’s favourite place in London?

• 14 novels: Palace of Westminster (including the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Hall). Dickens began his career as a parliamentary reporter, so it’s no surprise the corridors of power figure prominently in his works. The only books to lack a mention are the unfinished Edwin Drood, and Great Expectations (though this does include Westminster Abbey and Westminster Bridge, which means Drood is the only novel without any Westminster reference).
• 13 novels: St Paul’s Cathedral (including St Paul’s churchyard)
• 11 novels: Strand
• 9 novels: Bank of England, Covent Garden Market, Holborn (including Holborn Bridge), London Bridge, Old Bailey, Temple (various specific locations mentioned within), Tower of London
• 8 novels: Cheapside, Newgate prison

Dickens’s favourite bridges

9 novels: London Bridge

• 6 novels: Westminster Bridge
• 5 novels: Blackfriars Bridge, Waterloo Bridge
• 3 novels: Southwark Bridge
• 2 novels: Vauxhall Bridge
• 1 novel: Chelsea Bridge, Hammersmith Bridge, Kew Bridge, Putney Bridge