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The thrilling but largely unknown story of the day in 1834 that the 800 year-old Houses of Parliament burned down - an event that was as shocking and significant to contemporaries as the death of Princess Diana was to us at the end of the 20th century.
List of contents
- Prologue
- 1: Thursday 16 October 1834, 6am: Mr Hume's Motion for a New House
- 2: Thursday 16 October 1834, 7am: Novelty, Novelty, Novelty
- 3: Thursday 16 October 1834, 9am: Worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood
- 4: Thursday 16 October 1834, 3pm: Manifest Indications of Danger
- 5: Thursday 16 October 1834, 6pm: One of the Greatest Instances of Stupidity Upon Record
- 6: Thursday 16 October 1834, 7pm: The Brilliancy of Noonday
- 7: Thursday 16 October 1834, 8pm: Immense and Appalling Splendour
- 8: Thursday 16 October 1834, 9pm: Damn the House of Commons!
- 9: Thursday, 16 October 1834, 10pm: But Save, Oh Save, the Hall!
- 10: Thursday 16 October 1834, 11pm: Milton's Pandemonium
- 11: Friday 17 October 1834, Midnight: A National Calamity
- 12: Friday 17 October 1834, 1am: Emptying the Thames
- 13: Friday 17 October 1834, 3.30am: Thank God We Seem All Safe
- 14: Friday 17 October 1834, 4am: Guy Faux has Rose Again
- 15: Friday 17 October 1834, 6am: Past Peril
- Epilogue
- Dramatis Personae
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Caroline Shenton was Director of the Parliamentary Archives at Westminster from 2008 to 2014, and prior to that was a senior archivist at Parliament and The National Archives at Kew. Her first book, The Day Parliament Burned Down, won the inaugural Political Book of the Year Award in 2013. It was also shortlisted for a number of other prizes, including the Longman-History Today Prize, and was a Book of the Year for the Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, Daily Mail, and Herald Scotland.
Summary
The thrilling but largely unknown story of the day in 1834 that the 800 year-old Houses of Parliament burned down - an event that was as shocking and significant to contemporaries as the death of Princess Diana was to us at the end of the 20th century.
Additional text
Caroline Shenton's writing style is a joy: She draws the reader in through the perspectives of numerous individuals, through clipped analysis and summation of contemporary written accounts, and with a hugely diverse range of sources, many of which are elegantly witty and tragical by turns ... This volume will appeal to historians, architectural historians, students of politics, social observers, and, unusually for histories, fans of a ripping yarn.
