Dark London: A Journey Through the City's Mysterious and Macabre Underworld

From dark crimes of passion to shocking tales of grave robbing, gruesome murders, dens of iniquity, Victorian séances, and haunted houses—not far beneath London’s everyday bustle and glitter there has long been a fascinatingly rich underworld of criminality, superstition, scandal, and macabre debauchery.

In Dark London, social historian Dr Drew Gray, a specialist in the history of crime and punishment, delves into the city’s grim yet compelling past, uncovering the people and places that shaped its darker identity.

Across more than 100 real-life cases and curiosities, he explores how London became both the heart of a growing empire and a stage for vice, greed, and human fallibility.

Highlights include:

The London Burkers • , a notorious gang of resurrectionists whose leader confessed to stealing and selling nearly 1,000 bodies to London’s medical schools in the 1830s. The Whitechapel Murders of 1888 • , still the world’s longest running serial murder mystery. The prisons of Newgate and Pentonville • , where shifting attitudes towards justice revealed the tension between punishment, reform, and moral control. The legend of Spring-heeled Jack • , the terrifying, leaping figure who caused panic across London’s streets. The Great Stink of 1858 • , when London’s polluted Thames brought the city to a standstill and forced a revolution in sanitation and public health.

Dark London brings together the history of the city’s seamier side, picking out the most scandalous, curious and bizarre aspects of London’s shadowy and fascinating underbelly.

© 2025 Frances Lincoln (Ebook): 9781836004257

Release date

Ebook: 2 September 2025