The Great Fire of London

‘London’s burning, London’s burning, Fire, fire! Fire, fire!’  So runs the nursery rhyme, but in the early hours of 2 September 1666 something stirred in London that would change the city forever.  This dramatic visualisation of the Great Fire describes the very different face of 17^th-century London, with its crowded streets and wooden houses, so close together that neighbours could lean out of windows and touch the opposite building.  After a long hot and dry summer, even the Thames was running low.  The fire that began in the baker’s shop in Pudding Lane soon took hold, fanned by strong winds.  Emma Adams recounts the destruction of the city with drama and pace, as the fire licked at thatched roofs and pitch, pushing south towards London Bridge.  Quotations from Samuel Pepys’ diary punctuate the story as houses are blown up to create a firebreak and important buildings succumb to the flames.  James Weston Lewis’s bold stylised illustrations paint a vivid picture – golds, yellow, oranges and blues, with flickering flames and pattern-like shapes silhouetted against the glow of the fire.  The final pages show London rebuilt from the ashes, St Paul’s Cathedral designed by Christopher Wren rising above the city, and nearby The Monument, close to the site where the fire broke out.  A dramatic and visually exciting book, and a fitting commemoration of the 350^th anniversary of the Great Fire of London.