The great when

18.50

A propulsive tour through a fantastical London, where history and myth collide, murder stalks the streets and the mundane becomes very magical indeed?

The year is 1949, the city London. Amidst the smog of the capital is Dennis Knuckleyard, a hapless eighteen-year-old employed by a second-hand bookshop. One day, on an errand to acquire books for sale, Dennis discovers a novel that simply does not exist. It is a fictitious book, a figment from another novel. Yet it is physically there in his hands. How?

Dennis has stumbled on a book from the Great When, a magical version of London beyond time and space, where reality blurs with fiction and concepts such as Crime and Poetry are incarnated as wondrous, terrible beings. But this other, magical London must remain a secret: if Dennis cannot find a way to return this book to where it belongs, he risks bizarre and disastrous repercussions, such as his body being turned inside out (or worse).

So begins a journey delving deep into the city’s occult underbelly and tarrying with an eccentric cast of sorcerers, gangsters, and murderers – some from legend, some all too real, and all with plans of their own. Soon Dennis finds himself at the centre of an explosive series of events that may alter and endanger both Londons forever.

Thrilling, lyrical and sparkling with dark humour, The Great When is the first book in a new series by Sunday Times-bestseller and icon, Alan Moore.

‘A breathless time-travelling classic. Savage, humane, comic, terrifying’ Iain Sinclair

‘Brilliant and so powerfully imaginative’ Adam Curtis

‘A weird book and a complete joy’ Mariana Enrìquez

‘A masterful step from one of our very best, uncompromising storytellers; Moore peels back the layers of London and reveals not only the history we know, but the histories that could have been, and, underneath it all, both the dark and beautiful truths about who we are as a nation.’ Heather Parry

ISBN: 9781526643230

In stock

When Dennis comes into possession of a book that shouldn’t exist, a new chapter in his life begins and a different, alternate London reveals itself – and with it a cast of characters each more unlikely and fantastical than the last. Long London occupies precisely the same geographical space as our London – but it is a city built from dreamscapes and art, from fiction and nightmares.

Additional information

Weight0.418 kg
Dimensions23.4 × 15.3 × 2.45 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

315

Language

English

Edition

Export ed

Dewey

823.92 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K

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