Bell, Walter George. Unknown London.

London: John Lane, 1919.

__________. More About Unknown London. London: John Lane, 1921.

I admit to a weakness for books of history with “unknown” in the title. And I always enjoy collections of then-present-day observations written in the semi-distant past. Well, 1919 doesn’t really seem that ancient to me — but it’s ninety years ago now, nearly a century, so I suppose that says something about me. The Great War had just ended and Bell the antiquarian was continuing his lifelong habit of poking about in the city of his birth, climbing down ladders into medieval basements, opening cupboards in ancient churches, and discovering things of which, he laments, the people about him walking to work are completely oblivious.

Sayers, Dorothy L. The Nine Tailors.

NY: Harper & Row, 1934.

To the geeks among her readership, this is one of Sayers’s most thoroughly fascinating novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. Peter and Bunter are driving through the Norfolk fens late one blizzardy New Year’s Eve when the car goes into a ditch and they have to hike through the blowing snow to the nearest village, Fenchurch St. Paul. They’re taken in by the elderly rector and his wife, who assure them the car can be rescued in the morning — but just now, the rector is planning a big event in the huge 11th century parish church across the road.