I was delighted, as usual, by Liza Picard's Victorian London, the fourth of her grand series on life in the capital

This book is a feast of tit-bits, bringing 19th-century London to life piecemeal with the accumulation of facts ... a valuable addition to the literature of London

Whether she is describing the music halls, such as the Alhambra in Leicester Square, or the criminal underworld, or the foundation of London University, or the lives of the costermongers, or the expansion of the middle-class suburbs, she never loses her eye for the telling detail. Reading her book is like gazing at one of those energetic, crowded canvases by the Victorian painter William Powel Frith, who brought the age to life through a multiplicity of detail

The glories of Picard's magpie style are immediately apparent. She paints a picture with deft, sure strokes, then finds the perfect quotation

She cannot be denied her bid for the heavyweight crown. She writes the old history, descriptive and unanalytical, painted in exhilarating colours

She is an engaging companion, always wondering out loud about the sort of questions which you've asked yourself ... an enjoyable book

Picard enjoys recounting the gruesome daily mechanics of living in what Cobbett described as "the great wen"

Thus the book proceeds, by typifying anecdotes, which are well chosen and impeccably annotated, and all linked together by Picard's untroubling, readable prose