London has sheltered and inspired writers for centuries. Bunhill Fields' graveyard has monuments to John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe and William Blake. Bloomsbury gave its name to a literary set that included Virginia Woolf, while the leafy suburb of Hampstead was once home to John Keats, H G Wells and D H Lawrence.

Some of the country's most famous writers are commemorated in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, such as William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde.

Tim Moore's 'Do Not Pass Go' (2002), is an hilarious travelogue of one man's journey around the Monopoly board and an epic history of London's progress since the launch of this very popular board game.

Peter Akroyd's 'London: A Biography' (2000), is a lively and impressively detailed history of London that captures the essence of the City's spirit.

Nick Hornby's 'High Fidelity' (1995), is a humorous account of a 30-something DJ, who runs a London record store and is the original novel on which the film starring John Cusack is based.

Martin Amis' 'London Fields' (1989), is a fictional portrait of London in pre-millennial decline in a world facing the possibility of nuclear war.

Chris Petit's 'Robinson' (1993), delves deep into a seedy world of deceitful and depraved activities set in Soho.

Tobias Hill's 'Underground' (1999). Forget 'Murder on the Orient Express', this is a poetic murder mystery woven around the London Underground system in which a serial killler keeps pushing women under trains.

Jake Arnott's 'The Long Firm' (1999), is set in the London underworld of the 1960s and tells the story of a London crime boss, his rent boy, smuggling, corrupt detectives and even torture!

Monica Ali's 'Brick Lane' (2003), is a moving account of a young woman's journey from her native Bangladesh to the East End of London.

The seething mass of 19th century London life (and its legendary fog) is vividly recreated in the novels of Charles Dickens and the sinister goings-on in the capital surface in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Robert Louis Stephenson's 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' (1886), is another famous classic, as is 'The Secret Agent' (1923), by Joseph Conrad.