CITY · UNITED KINGDOM

Books set in London

51.507, -0.128

237 books · 172 authors · 1748–2025

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237 books here

Most-set authors

Arthur Conan Doyle (14) · Charles Dickens (10) · Ian McEwan (5) · George Orwell (4) · Mick Herron (4) · Henry James (4)

Genres

literary fiction (87) · mystery & crime (22) · fantasy (14) · science fiction (13) · thriller & suspense (13) · romance (11) · historical fiction (8) · children's (2) · adventure (1) · horror (1) · young adult (1)

Books set here

Set in London (189)

1984

George Orwell

Dystopian totalitarian capital

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

Xiaolu Guo

Chinese student in London

A Darkling Plain

Philip Reeve

A Friend from England

Anita Brookner

Notting Hill bookshop narrator

A Gentleman's Gentleman

Contemporary London — Black middle-class lives after Grenfell

A Journal of the Plague Year

Daniel Defoe

Great Plague of 1665

A Little Princess

Frances Hodgson Burnett

A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth

Daniel Mason

Regency London setting for multiple stories; bare-knuckle fighter and young mother narratives

main narrative setting

Anatomy of a Scandal

Sarah Vaughan

Westminster and Old Bailey; political scandal trial in present-day London

Around the World in Eighty Days

Bridget Jones's Diary

Helen Fielding

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Helen Fielding

London (Hampstead); Bridget's home as a widow and mother

Case Study

Graeme Macrae Burnet

1960s psychotherapy sessions

City of the Mind

Penelope Lively

architect explores London past and present

Clown Town

Mick Herron

MI5 Slough House base

David Copperfield

Charles Dickens

Primary setting - childhood and adult life

Disclaimer

Renée Knight

London documentary filmmaker's home; where Catherine discovers a novel that exposes her buried secret

Dissolution

Nicholas Binge

Lazarus Institute base

Don't Let Him In

Lisa Jewell

Martha and Nicks home

Down and Out in Paris and London

George Orwell

Dracula

Bram Stoker

Evenings and Weekends

Oisin McKenna

primary setting, heatwave weekend 2019

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven

Chris Cleave

Blitz-era London, 1939–1942; Mary and Tom's wartime lives

Outer London's Jamaican diaspora underground dub reggae scene in the 1970s–80s, where Yamaye finds her identity in The C

Flesh

David Szalay

Istvan among the super-rich

Fundamentally

Nussaibah Younis

Nadia's home city and Sara's East London origin before radicalisation

Funny Girl

Nick Hornby

Swinging London 1960s; Barbara leaves Blackpool for the capital to become a TV comedian

Girl, Woman, Other

Bernardine Evaristo

National Theatre, multiple lives

Girls in Their Married Bliss

Edna OBrien

where Kate and Baba live

Good Material

Dolly Alderton

Andy navigates London's comedy scene and dating in his thirties after a breakup

alcoholic drifter across London

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Diagon Alley / wizarding London scenes

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter series

J.K. Rowling

King s Cross Platform 9 3/4

In the Presence of the Enemy

Elizabeth George

London investigation hub

Incendiary

Chris Cleave

East End; the narrator's working-class world shattered by an al-Qaeda stadium bombing

Jack Maggs

Peter Carey

Victorian London, 1837 setting

Julie, or the New Heloise

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Keep the Aspidistra Flying

George Orwell

Lessons

Ian McEwan

England (primarily London) where Roland Baines lives his ordinary life buffeted by 70 years of European history — from t

Life After Life

Kate Atkinson

London during the Blitz; most vivid section of the novel

Light Perpetual

Francis Spufford

Fictional south London borough Bexford where five children survive a 1944 V2 bomb in an imagined alternate life

Little Dorrit

Charles Dickens

Marshalsea prison, Southwark

two millennia of city history

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

Maddie Mortimer

Suburban London family home

Marble Hall Murders

Anthony Horowitz

Susan Ryeland works here (frame narrative)

Mona Lisa Overdrive

William Gibson

Kumiko Notting Hill arrival

Libyan exile community

podcaster entangled in dangerous lies

Northern Lights

Philip Pullman

Of Human Bondage

William Somerset Maugham

primary adult setting

Only in London

Hanan Al-Shaykh

Arab immigrant London — four strangers seeking freedom

Other People

Martin Amis

London amnesiac odyssey

Our Mutual Friend

Charles Dickens

Victorian London and Thames

Our Wives Under the Sea

Julia Armfield

Miri's home; the aching domestic life while waiting for Leah to return from the deep

primary setting throughout

Portal entry point to the House; real-world framing scenes in 2010s London

modern scholars research Victorian poets

Red Rabbit

Tom Clancy

Ryan at MI6 Century House

Rivers of London

Ben Aaronovitch

Contemporary London, Covent Garden and the Thames

Rules for Ruin

Mimi Matthews

1860s Victorian London

Season of Migration to the North

al-Tayyib Salih

Second-Class Citizen

Buchi Emecheta

immigrant life in London

Slow Horses

Mick Herron

Slough House MI5 outpost in Barbican

Small Island

Andrea Levy

postwar Jamaican immigrant life

Soft City

Jonathan Raban

urban life essay setting

Central London (Goldhawk Road area); home of Martha and her family across forty years of undiagnosed mental illness and

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson

London podcast romance

The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of the Red-Headed League

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of the Speckled Band

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Art of a Lie

Laura Shepherd-Robinson

Georgian London 1749

The Autograph Man

Zadie Smith

north London protagonist home

The BFG

Roald Dahl

The Betrayal of Thomas True

A.J. West

primary Georgian setting

2000s London — and its post-apocalyptic flooded island future — through cabdriver Dave Rudman's poisonous diary-turned-s

The Buccaneers

Edith Wharton

Primary setting — American heiresses conquer London society

The Children Act

Ian McEwan

High Court family judge, Gray's Inn & Lincoln's Inn, London

The Cricket on the Hearth

Charles Dickens

The Cuckoo's Calling

The Death of the Heart

Elizabeth Bowen

Interwar London home

The Difference Engine

Bruce Sterling

The Emperor's Babe

Bernardine Evaristo

Roman Londinium, AD 211

The Girl on the Train

Paula Hawkins

The Golden Bowl

Henry James

Gilded Age London society drama

The Good Liar

Denise Mina

forensic science crime thriller

The Great Train Robbery

Michael Crichton

Victorian heist planning hub

The Heir Apparent

Rebecca Armitage

Royal England, fictional British monarchy headquarters

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

Henry Fielding

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Hundred and One Dalmatians

Dodie Smith

The Imaginary Lives of James Poneke

Tina Makereti

Victorian London; where Maori boy James is brought as a living exhibit in an artist's gallery, encountering empire and i

The Invisible Girl

Lisa Jewell

Upscale London neighborhood; a missing teenage girl and an accused man whose lives intersect around a grand tree-lined a

Caribbean migrants in the city

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Douglas Adams

Dirk Gently detective base

The Lost Apothecary

Sarah Penner

1791 London and present-day Thames mudlarking; a hidden apothecary's poison trade and its 21st-century investigator

The Magician's Nephew

C. S. Lewis

The Maid

Nita Prose

Fictional Regency Grand Hotel in London where maid Molly Gray discovers a dead billionaire guest

The Man Who Was Thursday

G. K. Chesterton

The Man with the Golden Gun

Ian Fleming

The Man with the Twisted Lip

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Map of the Sky

Félix J. Palma

Martian invasion London

The Midnight Library

Matt Haig

Setting of Nora's Olympic swimmer life, about to give a speech

The Ministry of Fear

Graham Greene

Wartime London during the Blitz

The Ministry of Time

Kaliane Bradley

near-future government setting

The Mirror and the Light

Hilary Mantel

Tudor court in London; Cromwell's final four years as Henry VIII's chief minister 1536-1540

The New Life

Tom Crewe

1890s London; two married men collaborate on a manuscript advocating tolerance for same-sex relations

The Night Watch

Sarah Waters

Blitz-era London, 1941–1947

The Old Curiosity Shop

Charles Dickens

The Only Suspect

Louise Candlish

London suburb (fictional Silver Vale), dual timeline 1990s Camden and present

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde

main setting

The Portrait of a Lady

Henry James

The Queen of the Damned

Anne Rice

The Rachel Papers

Martin Amis

London where Charles Highway pursues Rachel Noyes while cramming for his Oxford entrance exams

The Rose Bargain

Sasha Peyton Smith

alternate-history fae London

The Satanic Verses

Salman Rushdie

immigrant experience in England

The Secret Book Society

Madeline Martin

Victorian mystery setting

The Secret Hours

Mick Herron

Present-day London, Slough House intelligence world

The Silkworm

The Sleeper Awakes

H. G. Wells

The Society of Unknowable Objects

Gareth Brown

secret society bookshop base

The Splendid and the Vile

Erik Larson

Churchill's wartime London; the Blitz, 1940–1941

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson

Victorian London streets

The Thirty-nine Steps

The Well of Loneliness

Radclyffe Hall

The Wings of the Dove

Henry James

Kate Croy opening acts

The Witch of Portobello

Paulo Coelho

The Woman and the Ape

Peter Høeg

London Zoo near-future setting

The Woman in White

Wilkie Collins

Walter Hartright encounter

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

London (Soho); 1967-68 psychedelic music scene

Vanity Fair

William Makepeace Thackeray

Regency London society

Warlight

Michael Ondaatje

Post-war London setting

Your Face Tomorrow (Fever and Spear)

Javier Marías

Primary setting — Jaime Deza in London intelligence world

The Queen of Fives

Alex Hay

the Kendals' Mayfair mansion

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

J.K. Rowling

Fan-identified real-world model for Diagon Alley

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

J.K. Rowling

Leaky Cauldron entrance to Diagon Alley; Harry lodges here for the rest of the summer after fleeing the Dursleys

The Confessions of Frannie Langton

Sara Collins

Mayfair mansion, London

London Calling

James Ponti

the royal wedding MI6 case

Also featuring London (48)

A Bit of Difference

Sefi Atta

Protagonist Deola works at London charity office

Act of Oblivion

Robert Harris

English Parliament and court scenes during the Restoration manhunt for the regicides

Beyond That, the Sea

Laura Spence-Ash

WWII London — Beatrix's home before evacuation

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

V.E. Schwab

Charlotte's 1827 season

Cloud Atlas

David Mitchell

Timothy Cavendish publishing comedy, 2012

Ghost Light

Joseph O'Connor

1952 boarding house scenes

Good Omens

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Aziraphale and Crowley base

Gravel Heart

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Ethiopian exile nurse in London

Hadrian the Seventh

Frederick Rolfe

Opening — George Rose's shabby London lodgings

Held

Anne Michaels

later generation setting

Hungerstone

Kat Dunn

where Lenore lived before

In the Light of What We Know

Zia Haider Rahman

South Kensington frame narrative

Joe Country

Mick Herron

Slough House base; Regent's Park MI5 headquarters scenes

Love Forms

Claire Adam

Dawn's present-day life, south London terraced house

Middle England

Jonathan Coe

London; secondary setting in the Brexit trilogy

Murder Takes a Vacation

African Students Union diasporic shock

Paradise

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Salim's new life in London

Princess Bari

Hwang Sok-yong

London — Bari final destination, bewildering multicultural city

Red, White & Royal Blue

Casey McQuiston

Kensington Palace, London, British royal family scenes

Sankofa

Chibundu Onuzo

London where Anna, a mixed-race British woman, discovers her father is the former president of a West African country an

Shrines of Gaiety

Kate Atkinson

1920s Soho nightclubs

Still Life

Sarah Winman

wartime England opening scenes

The Ambassadors

Henry James

Prologue and arrival city

The Book of Negroes

Lawrence Hill

Aminata 1802 frame narrative

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon

train journey setting

The Dream Hotel

Laila Lalami

conference trip, sets off the detention

The Essex Serpent

Sarah Perry

London scenes, Victorian era

The First Witch of Boston

Andrea Catalano

origin before emigration

The Forest on the Edge of Time

Jasmin Kirkbride

COVID lockdown London 2020; Anna is a teenager living with her single mum

The Forger's Requiem

Bradford Morrow

forgery dealings

The Great Railway Bazaar

Paul Theroux

Departure point: Victoria Station, London — start of the four-month Asian train journey

The Island of Missing Trees

Elif Shafak

contemporary London storyline

The Map of Love

Ahdaf Soueif

present-day London narrative strand

The Moonstone

Wilkie Collins

London investigation scenes

The Other Mrs Walker

Mary Paulson-Ellis

1920s–1980s flashback chapters

London intelligence headquarters

The Shadow Lines

Amitav Ghosh

Price family London home

The Swimming-Pool Library

Alan Hollinghurst

1983 gay London

The War of the Worlds

H.G. Wells

Martian advance on London

The Woman in Suite 11

Ruth Ware

the final confrontation

The Years of Rice and Salt

Kim Stanley Robinson

Gobblers abduct children here

Transcription

Kate Atkinson

WWII MI5 transcription flat

Universality

Natasha Brown

city trader world, secondary setting

Where the Axe Is Buried

Ray Nayler

exile home of Lilia and Palmer

Absolute Beginners

Colin MacInnes

jazz clubs and youth haunts

The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown

Newton's tomb scene

Notable locations in London

Soho4Buckingham Palace2Charing Cross Road2Charing Cross Road, London2Mayfair2Soho, London2Westminster210 Downing Street1Berkeley Square1Bond Street1Cecil Court, London1Covent Garden Market1Curzon Street, Mayfair1Dolphin Square1Grosvenor Square, Mayfair1Knightsbridge1Mayfair, London1Piccadilly Circus1Soho Square1St James's Park1The Ritz London1Trafalgar Square1Victoria Street1Waterloo Bridge1