Worse than Cimmeran Darkness: Fog and the representation of Victorian London

In this 2011 seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London School of Advanced Study, Joseph de Sapio discusses fog in the representation of Victorian London, particularly from the perspective of tourists to the city. He argues that, beyond their use in the literature of the period, representations of London fog 'can provide an alternative environment for considering the relationship between the citizen and the urban system', as fogs sever the relationship between an observer and the urban environment. The paper is 'designed as something of a starting-point for exploring the ways in which these representations of the fog-bound city pose challenges to the ideas of the urban system based on vision and movement. It argues that the urban environment during a thick fog is considerably altered from its nominal, everyday state, and the set of practices by which the modern city is constituted in the observer's mind are, as a result, inverted in a theatre of the street'.