Ken Worpole

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Ken Worpole is the author of a number of books on literature, landscape and architecture, and was one of the organisers of the seminal exhibition 20,000 Streets Under The Sky: The London Novel 1896-1985, put on at the Royal Festival Hall in 1986. He has written and published much about London fiction, including Dockers And Detectives (1984, reprinted by Five Leaves Press, 2008) and a number of essays in journals and anthologies.

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His long introduction to the reissue of Alexander Baron’s novel King Dido (Five Leaves Press, 2010) contains the earliest considered appreciation of Baron’s life and work. He also wrote the introduction to the London Books edition of Simon Blumenfeld’s Jew Boy (2011). Other books include Here Comes The Sun: Architecture And Public Space In 20th Century European Culture, while 2021 saw the publication of No Matter How Many Skies Have Fallen: Back To The Land In Wartime Britain.

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The Independent newspaper noted that: ‘For many years, Ken Worpole has been one of the shrewdest and sharpest observers of the English social landscape.’