London Spirits: Short Stories

Rob Burton

Sep 2017 · Stansbury Publishing

Ebook

130

Pages

Eligible

Ratings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More

About this ebook

Anyone who has walked the streets of London knows how profoundly history haunts the city. From its monuments and memorials to its blue-circled plaques, London wears the past with style, decorum, and a certain spirit. London Spirits pays homage to this spirit using narrators (some dead, some alive; some historical, some fictional) who have a particularly interesting story to tell about their life and times in this great metropolis. There’s Philip Clark, plumber to Westminster Abbey, who recounts a “cock-eyed” version of William and Mary’s Coronation in 1689. There’s Virginia Woolf who takes one last walk through Regent’s Park in her waning days and revisits her past with powerful stream-of-consciousness memories. There’s a contented suburban mother-of-two who is suddenly forced to confront her heady, “romantic” days as a London University student twenty years earlier. Other spirits include an Egyptian mummy in the British Museum; the Celtic warrior queen—Boadicea--at the millennium celebrations; a black British writer reflecting on his role as an artist in response to the racially-motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993; and an eccentric stranger in a pub who shares similar traits as the painter, Joseph Turner.

About the author

Rob Burton was born and raised in England. He received his Bachelors of Arts from Kent University, Canterbury, and then won a scholarship to Indiana University in the United States where he earned a PhD in English and American Literature in 1984. He was a professor of English at California State University, Chico, for 30 years.

Burton has previously published three books. Around the World in 52 Words: Ritual Writing for the New Millennium (Stansbury Publishing, 2002), consists of 365 short prose-poems dedicated to themes and issues that were topical at the turn of the new millennium. Artists of the Floating World: Contemporary Writers Between Cultures (University Press of America, 2007), examines the literary works of four major world writers who embrace multicultural backgrounds. His book, Hops and Dreams: The Story of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (Stansbury Publishing, 2010,) narrates the story of one of the most successful and innovative craft-breweries in the United States, conveniently located near his home. All research about the Chico brewery was from primary sources and firsthand experience, and became the first book to describe the popular business.

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets

Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.

Laptops and computers

You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.

eReaders and other devices

To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.

Report illegal content