The richness of Mayfair’s extraordinary history is brought to life in 28 engrossing chapters spanning almost 350 years from the Earl of Clarendon’s sacking as Charles II’s Lord Chancellor in 1667 to Lord Byron’s disgrace in 1816 to the most famous concert in the history of rock music, The Beatles’ farewell gig in January 1969 on the rooftop of 3 Savile Row, and beyond to the present day.
The Private Lives of Mayfair contains a wealth of fascinating archival material, and no other book has attempted such a compelling study of the square mile bordered by Park Lane, Piccadilly, Regent Street and Oxford Street, and the people who inhabit it.
Through its multiplicity of characters, scene-setting and incident, The Private Lives of Mayfair achieves what the Guardian’s ‘Author, Author’ columnist Colin Thubron describes as ‘the elusive concept of evoking the spirit of a place’.
About the Author
Peter Thompson, born in Melbourne, joined the London Daily Mirror in 1966. He was a Fleet Street journalist for twenty years, rising to night editor and deputy editor of the Daily Mirror, editor of the Sunday Mirror and a director of Mirror Group Newspapers. In 1988 Thompson was the first Mirror Group editor to break ranks and expose the criminality of his former boss Robert Maxwell. Thompson’s first book, Maxwell: A Portrait of Power, written with former Mirrorman and fellow Australian Anthony Delano, detailed the publishing tycoon’s rise to power through acts of fraud, deception and dishonesty. Thompson is the author of the wartime trilogy Pacific Fury, Anzac Fury and Shanghai Fury. With Robert Macklin, he also wrote The Big Fella: The Rise and Rise of BHP Billiton which won the Blake Dawson prize for Business Literature.
The Private Lives of Mayfair contains a wealth of fascinating archival material, and no other book has attempted such a compelling study of the square mile bordered by Park Lane, Piccadilly, Regent Street and Oxford Street, and the people who inhabit it.
Through its multiplicity of characters, scene-setting and incident, The Private Lives of Mayfair achieves what the Guardian’s ‘Author, Author’ columnist Colin Thubron describes as ‘the elusive concept of evoking the spirit of a place’.
About the Author
Peter Thompson, born in Melbourne, joined the London Daily Mirror in 1966. He was a Fleet Street journalist for twenty years, rising to night editor and deputy editor of the Daily Mirror, editor of the Sunday Mirror and a director of Mirror Group Newspapers. In 1988 Thompson was the first Mirror Group editor to break ranks and expose the criminality of his former boss Robert Maxwell. Thompson’s first book, Maxwell: A Portrait of Power, written with former Mirrorman and fellow Australian Anthony Delano, detailed the publishing tycoon’s rise to power through acts of fraud, deception and dishonesty. Thompson is the author of the wartime trilogy Pacific Fury, Anzac Fury and Shanghai Fury. With Robert Macklin, he also wrote The Big Fella: The Rise and Rise of BHP Billiton which won the Blake Dawson prize for Business Literature.
