Mystic London

The Occult and the Esoteric in Peter Ackroyd's Work

Abstract

This article focuses on how the occult and esoteric is employed and explored in selected works of Peter Ackroyd, both as a theme and as a determining factor of their narrative structure. It aims to discuss the basic constituents of the writer’s mythology of London, namely a cyclic understanding of time, and a focus on the power of the genius loci and the city’s outstanding visionaries. It also shows how the occult aspects of these works undermine the traditional narrative principles of the historical novel and by means of pluralisation and hybridisation attempt to invigorate the genre. In order to illustrate the ways in which Ackroyd incorporates elements of the occult and esoteric in his works five novels have been chosen, Hawksmoor (1985), The House of Doctor Dee (1993), Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994), The Clerkenwell Tales (2003) and The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (2008), along with the non-fiction London: The Biography (2000).