What are the best resources, online and off, to research London in the 1920s?

March 8, 2004 1:47 AM

London in the 1920's -- what are the best books (nonfiction and fiction) and websites to research this topic? (more inside)

I am planning to attend this exhibit at the Museum of London, and I'd like to research the topic some more. thanks.

posted by matteo to Grab Bag (5 answers total)

Not a book, but I recommend renting "Upstairs, Downstairs" on DVD. It's a wonderful British TV series that spans from 1908 to 1930.
posted by grumblebee at 7:00 AM on March 8, 2004

This is a qualified recommendation, at best, for fiction (qualified because, well, I haven't actually read the books yet), but it seems like the first two volumes of Anthony Powell's Dance to The Music of Time [amazon link to the first volume] might be just what you're looking for. For what it's worth, the books are right at the top of my increasingly unmanageable "to-get-to-when-the-dissertation-is-finished" reading list.
posted by .kobayashi. at 9:36 AM on March 8, 2004

Vile Bodies and Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh were both set and written in the '20s. And Vile Bodies has just been made into a movie called Bright Young Things.
posted by malpractice at 9:53 AM on March 8, 2004

Virgina Woolf
1921 - Monday or Tuesday
1922 - Jacob's Room
1925 - Mrs. Dalloway
1927 - To the Lighthouse
1928 - Orlando
1929 - A Room of One's Own

For a totally different approach, you could read some Agatha
Christie.
posted by grumblebee at 10:09 AM on March 8, 2004

Or for an even more totally different approach, you might look at a history.
posted by languagehat at 10:22 AM on March 8, 2004