E-text prepared by Susan Skinner and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 27356-h.htm or 27356-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/3/5/27356/27356-h/27356-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/3/5/27356/27356-h.zip) The Fascination of London CHELSEA * * * * * _IN THIS SERIES._ Cloth, price 1s. 6d. net; leather, price 2s. net, each. CHELSEA. By G. E. MITTON. Edited by Sir WALTER BESANT. WESTMINSTER. By Sir WALTER BESANT and G. E. MITTON. THE STRAND DISTRICT. By Sir WALTER BESANT and G. E. MITTON. HAMPSTEAD. By G. E. MITTON. Edited by Sir WALTER BESANT. * * * * * [Illustration: CHELSEA OLD CHURCH. After an etching by Miss E. Piper.] The Fascination of London CHELSEA by G. E. MITTON Edited by Sir Walter Besant London Adam & Charles Black 1902 PREFATORY NOTE A survey of London, a record of the greatest of all cities, that should preserve her history, her historical and literary associations, her mighty buildings, past and present, a book that should comprise all that Londoners love, all that they ought to know of their heritage from the past--this was the work on which Sir Walter Besant was engaged when he died. As he himself said of it: "This work fascinates me more than anything else I've ever done. Nothing at all like it has ever been attempted before. I've been walking about London for the last thirty years, and I find something fresh in it every day." He had seen one at least of his dreams realized in the People's Palace, but he was not destined to see this mighty work on London take form. He died when it was still incomplete. His scheme included several volumes on the history of London as a whole. These he finished up to the end of the eighteenth century, and they form a record of the great city practically unique, and exceptionally interesting, compiled by one who had the qualities both of novelist and historian, and who knew how to make the dry bones live. The volume on the eighteenth century, which Sir Walter called a "very big chapter indeed, and particularly interesting," will shortly be issued by Messrs. A. and C. Black, who had undertaken the publication of the Survey.