It has strong literary and publishing connections, and former residents include the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne and the detective story writer Dorothy L. Sayers.

The Nation & Athenaeum, chaired by John Maynard Keynes, and the Nonesuch Press were both based in the street.

It is described in Nikolaus Pevsner's guide as "a gem" and its mostly terraced houses as "unusually uniform for their date".

Great James Street is the continuation of Bedford Row north of Theobalds Road in the Bloomsbury district of the London Borough of Camden.

It is described in Pevsner's guide as "a gem" and its mostly terraced houses as "unusually uniform for their date".