Celebrate London Books and Authors in October with our Literary Footprints Festival

Literary Footprints 2017 - our month long Literary Festival starts on October 1st. We have put together lots of new walks for this year so there are plenty to enjoy. You can enjoy the whole festival with a Season Ticket for £49 - that will let you go on as many walks as you like, and its a great way to join in the book club atmosphere of the walks. Of course you can buy individual tickets for each walk for £12/£9.



Highlights of week one - Clerkenwell's Literary Connections, Dr Who on location, Literary Covent Garden, A Dickens of a City, Shakespeare and trades in the city, follow Mrs Dalloway on her way to buy flowers, Made in Chelsea, banned books, T S Eliot's Waste Land, Booklover's St James





The London Canal Museum , situated by the canal in King’s Cross, is a fascinating museum that tells the story of London’s waterways. As well as its permanent displays it also has a new exhibition running until April 2018 documenting the history of London’s Lost Canals. Jen was inspired with new ideas for walks when she visited recently and highly recommends a visit. Fortunately for us, Regent’s Canal hasn’t been lost – although it almost was on more than one occasion. If you’d like to find out more about this canal, why not come on Jen’s new walk, Regent’s Canal Regenerated . , on Sunday 15th October. What better than an autumn stroll along the canal?





If literature is not your thing This month we offer the opportunity to explore Medical London. Jenni, Anne and Elaine will be walking through the City of London, Bloomsbury, Islington and, of course, the Harley Street area as they lead you through 2000 years of experimentation, quackery and scientific development. We should all be very glad that we were born in the 20th (or 21st) Century and have benefitted from good hygiene and modern medicines! There are four walks:

5th October – Doctors, disease and disseaction, 2000 years of medicine in the City of London

12th October – Spas, missions, madhouses and a fever hospital in Islington

19th October – Blooming with health, a walk through Bloomsbury

26th October – Royalty, drugs and demons in Westminster





The Polish Parliament has proclaimed the year 2017 the Year of Conrad to commemorate the Heart of Darkness’ author’s 160th birthday on December 3rd and there are a series of London events. Catch A Poetic Celebration of Joseph Conrad on 1 November at the South Bank at

Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski A.K.A. Joseph Conrad was born in 1857 to the Polish parents and became the best known Polish-British author of all time. His London novel The Secret Agent dissects a series of revolutionary anarchists, portraying them in an unfavourable light. Conrad himself had to leave Poland as a child to the revolutionary activities of his father, and earn his own living as a seaman, before his fame as a novelist freed him financially. Successive waves of exiles from France, Germany and Russia had made a home in Fitzrovia, and had come to police attention following royal pressure after the assassination of the Russian Tsar. Verloc, in Conrad's novel is a double agent, blackmailed to commit an outrage which ends in family tragedy. The death of Stevie, Verloc's son in law, is closely based on a real anarchist explosion near the Greenwich Observatory in 1894. Learn more about the revolutionary atmosphere of the 1890s on this new walk, featuring in the Literary Festival.





The new film Kingsman: The Golden Circle opened last month, the story being based around the Huntsman tailors shop in Savile Row. Huntsman is one of London's most beautiful shops and you can visit it on Michael's new walk “In Search of the real Kingsman – Spies and suits of Savile Row”

Have a great October in London whatever you end up doing. We love seeing your London photographs so tag us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter - @footprintsldn