Home » Travel » London Underground » Famous Novelists Take on the Tube

Famous Novelists Take on the Tube

© Richard Mitchell - Guest Author

That great and wise literary gentleman, Robert Louis Stevenson, once wrote that it was better to travel hopefully than to arrive. His brother George spitefully then invented railways in general and the London Underground in particular to prove he was wrong on both counts.

As a result, to get back at George and his steam locomotive, Robert immediately began an entire new literary genre, in which the underground features strongly.

In the first draft of his epic Treasure Island, Long John Silver is revealed as having lost his leg while on an escalator at Oxford Street station while under the influence of Rum. Young Jim hides from the conspirators not in an apple barrel, but behind the chocolate machine on Blackfriars (eastbound District). Blind Pugh asks for change for something to eat on the Central.

This has prompted many fine writers to use the London Underground a source for their lesser known works:

Alice and her adventures on the underground
by Lewis Carrol

"...Alice thought it quite strange that people actually paid money to get on the train every day and be tormented in this way, but as she looked around at the other people in the carriage, she realised that they were all quite strange too. there was a young lady not much older than herself, who had small silver rings through her eyebrows, nose and lips. She also had such a large number of studs through her ears that they looked in danger of fraying.

"I sha'n't stare her," thought Alice. "Although she does look very curious. I wonder at the danger to passers by when she blows her nose, to say nothing of scepticemia."

She craned her neck to avoid eye contact as all the passengers were doing, and the saw something even more extraordinary.

"My goodness!" cried Alice, rising from her seat. "there is a gentlemen talking loudly about his political opinions, But there is nobody there. The target of his discourse seems quite invisible."

"Hush my dear," said her companion. "It is the Old Nutter, who has Nobody as a friend. Would it surprise you to know that there is one on every train of this wonderful underground railway".

"Really," queried Alice, "and does his invisible friend travel with him every where he goes?"

"Yes, my dear. Wherever he goes, Nobody wants to sit next to him."

Lord of the Circle Line
by J.R.R.R. Tolkien

"What has it got in its Pocketeses, precious" said a horrible syrupy voice from the shadow.

The copyright of the article Famous Novelists Take on the Tube in London Underground is owned by Richard Mitchell - Guest Author. Permission to republish Famous Novelists Take on the Tube in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.