The mad grey city : a foreword by Timothy d'Arch Smith -- Introduction : magus about town -- Tomb of Burton, Mortlake : the perfect pioneer -- Thistle Grove, Kensington : disapproval of the universe in general -- Royal Arcade, Old Bond Street : what all the others are afraid to touch -- Watkins Bookshop, Cecil Court : great mysteries -- Douglas Road, Canonbury : the quality of the phantasmal -- Hotel Cecil and the Strand : sky above Cecil -- Farringdon Road : found on a bookstall -- Great Queen Street : enter the secret chiefs -- Barrow Road, Streatham : a mean, grim horror -- Chancery Lane : semi-solid shadows -- Lowe's Chemist, Stafford Street : exploring the pharmacopeia -- Blythe Road, Hammersmith : the battle -- Randolph Road, Maida Vale : magical feuding -- Gower Street : any sin would be an act of piety -- Café Royal : pagan and painted -- St. Mary's Terrace, Paddington : obvious from the style -- Warwick Road : pure prestidigitation -- Victoria Street : the most sinister atmosphere -- Henrietta Street, Covent Garden : fitted for the infernal rites -- South Audley Street : child of a pig -- Bruton Street : an artist -- Took's Court, Holborn : the new age -- British Library : one thing you can say about satanists... -- British Museum : the professor from Lhasa -- The Royal Courts of Justice, Strand : keeping it dark -- Caxton Hall : by the power in me vested... -- Looking Glass Publishing Company, Fleet Street : like Alice in Wonderland -- Ralston Street, Chelsea : curiously unreal -- Savoy Hotel, Strand : exchanging electricity -- Simpson's, Strand : boiled toads, Mother -- Old Tivoli Theatre, Strand : taking London by storm -- Flood Street, Chelsea : with an astral dagger -- 93 Regent Street : there could hardly be a nicer set of people -- Piccadilly : the mysteries of the IX° -- Avenue Studios, Fulham Road : rendezvous for spies -- Outram Road, Croydon : Count Zeppelin is requested -- Wellington Square, King's Road : spirit soothing oasis -- Cleveland Gardens, Bayswater : perfectly evil -- The Harlequin Club, Soho : sordid and filthy drinking den -- Eiffel Tower Restaurant, Fitzrovia : the most criminal street in London -- Duke's Hotel, St. James's Place : Mr. Bishop checks in -- Mansfield Street : unspeakably treacherous swine -- Mandrake Press, Museum Street : the man who saw the point -- Atlantis Bookshop, Bury Place and Museum Street : at the sign of the beast 666 -- Langham Hotel, Portland Place : Colonel Carter -- Park Mansions, Knightsbridge : wife of the beast -- Fribourg and Treyer, Haymarket : perique by appointment -- L'Escargot, Soho, and other restaurants : ordeal by curry -- Westminster Abbey : a past life -- Albemarle Street: magick -- Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane : an herd of many swine -- Praed Street, Paddington : libel discovered -- Cumberland Terrace : the flame of fornication -- Carlos Place, Mayfair : abominable libel -- Upper Montagu Street : explorer granted bail -- The Old Bailey : thank you, my lord -- Hungaria Restaurant, Lower Regent Street : babe of the abyss -- Hotel Washington, Curzon Street : the adorable Tanith -- Mayfair Hotel, Down Street : levitator bowled out -- Redburn Street, Chelsea : the unfortunate Norman Mudd -- Carey Street, Bankruptcy Court : on Queer Street -- Great Ormond Street, Bloomsbury : the eye of God -- Welbeck Street, Marylebone : pig's trotters and incense -- Warren Drive, Surbiton : amazing treachery -- Redcliffe Gardens, Chelsea : entrenched -- Fairhazel Gardens, Hamptstead : on the astral plane -- Duke Street : a little bi-location -- Manor Place, Paddington Green : a remote slum -- Rac Club, Pall Mall : Frieda Harris and the great work -- Sandwich Street, Saint Pancras : Bobby Barefoot -- Chepstow Villas, Notting Hill : educating Phyllis -- The Obelisk, Embankment : charter of universal freedom -- Alderney Street : Mattie Pickett and the women of Pimlico -- Hasker Street, Chelsea : most accidents happen at home -- West Hampstead : love in Hampstead -- Blackfriars Road, Waterloo : Cath Falconer -- Soho : Josephine Blackley and the women of Soho -- Hyde Park : on shikar -- The French House, Dean Street, and other pubs : triple absinthe -- Chester Terrace, Belgravia : the house on the borderland -- West Halkin Street : the bat in the belfry -- Morton House, Chiswick : the blackcurrant pudding brothers -- The Paragon, Petersham Road : the holy grail in Richmond -- The Green, Richmond : twenty-one again -- Fitzwilliam House, Richmond : drinks with the reverend -- Duke Street, Mayfair : death of a doctor -- Dover Street, Piccadilly : a very short stay -- Hamilton House, Piccadilly : the abiding rapture -- Wilton Place : Doctor Faustus -- Levy's Sound Studio, New Bond Street : the magical voice -- 93 Jermyn Street : the valley of the shadow of death -- Afterword: "a word in wilde haste" : Crowley, London and the 1890s.
Summary:
Aleister Crowley, "The Great Beast", infamous author and occultist, had a love-hate relationship with London, but it was where he spent much of his adult life, and it was the capital of the culture that created him. City of the beast is not a walking guide, although many routes could be pieced together from its pages. It is a biography by sites, revealing a man, an era, and a city. Fusing life-writing with psychogeography, steeped in London's social history from Victoria to the Blitz, it draws extensively on unpublished material and offers an exceptionally intimate picture of the Beast. Through 93 locations, we follow Crowley searching for prostitutes in Hyde Park and Pimlico, drinking absinthe and eating Chinese food in Soho, and finding himself down on his luck in Paddington Green - but never quite losing sight of the illumination that drove him: "the abiding rapture," he wrote in his diary, "which makes a 'bus in the street sound like an angel choir!" -- back cover.
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