Night-time London has long been a joy of writers. To wander its streets at night, sobre, is to discover a tranquility and beauty that the capital cannot afford during the day, as well as a different variety of ugliness – the stench of urine and fried food is stronger. In the nineteenth century Charles Dickens, workaholic insomniac that he was, drew on his nocturnal exploration of the city in his essay ‘Nightwalks,’ a piece of writing that also explores what he terms “houselessness.”
Homelessness, as we’d probably call it today, also exerts strong influence over English literary culture. George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris in London is a particularly prominent example of the interest writers take in deprivation. And W.H. Davies, the self-styled “super tramp” of the early twentieth century, was also a writer who drew heavily on his experiences of being without a home, even if he is not especially remembered today.
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