The London Scene is the name given to a series of six essays that Virginia Woolf wrote for Good Housekeeping magazine in 1931 and 1932.
The essay imagines a trip along the River Thames and describes the sites of industry and trade that would be seen along the way, as well as the environmental consequences.
Comparing contemporary politicians, such as Ramsay MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin, to those of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, Woolf suggests that politics has become less about the personality of great leaders.
[3] As Sonita Sarker writes, this is the only essay which has its title in quotation marks and suggests the voice of a tour guide or an awestruck sightseer.
In 1975, the American publisher Frank Hallman, with permission from Angelica Garnett and Quentin Bell, republished the first five essays as a book, giving the collection its title, The London Scene.
In 2013, The London Scene was again republished in full, this time by Daunt Books and with a short preface by Hermione Lee.