During the 1970s and 1980s, Peter Ackroyd wrote countless book reviews and articles for the “Spectator”, on literature, film and a number of social and cultural issues. This book offers a selection of these pieces which established Ackroyd's reputation as a writer.

During the 1970s and the early 1980s Peter Ackroyd wrote countless book reviews and articles for the “Spectator,” on literature, film and a number of social and cultural issues. The collection offers a selection of these incisive and entertaining pieces, which established Ackroyd's reputation as a writer. It also includes a selection of his reviews as chief book reviewer for the “Times,” as well as three of his short stories.

Peter Ackroyd's masterpiece London: The Biography was published in 2000, to critical acclaim and commercial success. His novels include Hawksmoor, Chatterton, Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem and, mostly recently, The Plato Papers. He is the biographer of T. S. Eliot, Dickens, Blake and Thomas More. In 2000 Thomas Wright edited Table Talk Oscar Wilde, the first English anthology of Oscar Wilde's spoken stories. He has published a number of articles in the Times Literary Supplement and regularly reviews books for the Daily Telegraph. He has worked as Peter Ackroyd's researcher on a number of his recent projects.