Into the London Fog with Elizabeth Dearnley

Join Dr Elizabeth Dearnley on this mysterious tour of London of popular imagination, enveloped in darkness and fog...

Near the beginning of Hitchcock's silent chiller The Lodger, respectable landlady Mrs Bunting opens her door to a tall, cloaked man with his face muffled in a scarf, pale brown fog drifting into the hall as she decides whether to let him cross the threshold.

Adapted from Marie Belloc Lowndes' 1913 novel of the same name, Hitchcock's film - subtitled A Story of the London Fog - encapsulates the tale's central fear in this shivery doorstep encounter: what dangers linger just outside the apparent safety of an ordinary London terrace, hidden by fog, darkness, or simply the anonymity of the city? And what happens when the safe and sinister sides of London meet?

This talk explores some of the strange tales - fact and fiction - that have emerged from the smoky, fog-prone capital, anthologised in Elizabeth Dearnley's recent book Into the London Fog.

Leading you on a tour through the city from Mayfair to Crystal Palace, and taking in stories by Edith Nesbit, Sam Selvon, Elizabeth Bowen and others, it invites you to take another look at the hidden side of seemingly familiar streets.

Elizabeth Dearnley is a folklorist, artist and Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies within the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Her work explores eerie landscapes, fairy tales and folk horror, and she has curated several projects delving into these fields, including immersive 1940s Red Riding Hood retelling Big Teeth and the Freud Museum London's uncanny restaging of E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Sandman.

She is currently writing a book about the relationship between forests and fairy tales.

Image by Greg Veit.

About the book:

Into the London Fog: Eerie Tales from the Weird City

As the smoky dark sweeps across the capital, strange stories emerge from the night. A séance reveals a ghastly secret in the murk of Regent’s Canal. From south of the Thames come chilling reports of a spring-heeled spectre, and in Stoke Newington rumours abound of an opening to another world among the quiet alleys.

Into the London Fog takes readers on an atmospheric tour through a shadowy London, a city which has long inspired writers of the weird and uncanny. Waiting in the hazy streets are eerie tales from Charlotte Riddell, Lettice Galbraith and Violet Hunt, along with haunting pieces by Virginia Woolf, Arthur Machen, Sam Selvon and many more.

Into the London Fog is the 16th volume in the British Library's popular Tales of the Weird series, which gathers together eerie stories and chilling tales from the British Library's archives, mostly from the late 19th and early 20th century.

You can buy the book online from the British Library shop: https://shop.bl.uk/products/into-the-london-fog-eerie-tales-from-the-weird-city

How to join the event

You will receive the LINK TO JOIN in an email from the library 48hr before and on the day of the event.

The talk will be 40 – 50 minutes long, followed by a Q & A. You will have the opportunity to submit questions in writing via the Q & A live chat. You won’t need a camera or microphone for this talk, as audience members won’t be seen or heard.

This event will start at 6.30pm London/UK time. If you are joining us from another country, please check for time differences. If you have any questions about this event please email libraries@rbkc.gov.uk

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Header image credit: Fog at Westminster, London, CC BY-SA 4.0, Credit: George Tsiagalaki, Desaturated from original