Literature
- Neil Gaiman's novel Neverwhere and the BBC television production of the same name are set in a world connected to our own that parallels the structure of the London Underground.
- In the graphic novel and movie V for Vendetta, the Guy Fawkes-esque anti-hero has his lair in the Underground, which was totally decommissioned after Norsefire gained power, and makes use of the tunnels for his anarchistic actions against the fascist government.
- In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore has a scar in the exact shape of the London Underground map on his left knee . Dumbledore says that scars have meaning, but none is given for his scar to date. Rowling says she is very fond of the scar and we may find out the meaning of it someday. Later, Harry and Hagrid travel on the Underground to Charing Cross Road in order to visit the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley.
- In the novel Tunnel Vision, a young man must win a bet by travelling through every Underground station in nineteen hours. The book even features the famous tube map inside the cover and tube routes to headline each chapter.
- London Transports is a collection of short stories by Maeve Binchy concerned with the lives and activities of people travelling on the Central and Victoria lines.
- Geoff Ryman's novel 253 tells the story of each of the 252 passengers, plus the driver, on the Bakerloo Line between Embankment station and Elephant & Castle.
- Alex Garland's short novel 'The Coma' begins with the main character being brutally assaulted on a late-night Tube train.
- King Solomon's Carpet is a novel by Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell) about the London Underground and the people frequenting it; including ordinary passengers, tube aficionados, pickpockets, buskers, vigilantes, and children who go "sledging" on the roofs of cars as an initiation rite.
- The Metropolitan Line and the area it serves feature prominently in Julian Barnes's 1980 novel Metroland and the 1997 film of the same name.
- John Spring's children's book, Mouses (1996) is based on the mice that live on the London Underground.
- China Miéville's book King Rat features a gruesome murder at Mornington Crescent tube station.
Read more about this topic: London Underground In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the word literature:
“In talking with scholars, I observe that they lost on ruder companions those years of boyhood which alone could give imaginative literature a religious and infinite quality in their esteem.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“This is not “writing” at all. Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“A people’s literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can.”
—Edith Hamilton (1867–1963)