Glimpses Of Ancient Hackney And Stoke Newington (out of print)

Benjamin Clarke

Written in the 1890s under the pseudonym (or more accurately his post-nominative surgical qualification) "F.R.C.S.", Benjamin Clarke, a local doctor, takes a series of imaginary walks through the streets of that time, reconstructing what had been there forty or fifty years before. These walks originally took the form of a series of newspaper articles in the 'Hackney Mercury'. They proved so popular that they were published in book form in 1894.

With its mixture of local history and Clarke's own vivid memories of the area, the work conjures up the Hackney that preceded the Victorian developers. This new edition has a short biography of the author, and notes to enable the modem reader to step back with Clarke to the time when Hackney and Stoke Newington were villages on the edge of London.

1986 | 320pp | OUT OF PRINT | ISBN 1 870165 004 | ISBN 0 9506558 3

A scan of the original first edition is available on Google Books.