Fleet Street Quarter Festival of Words 2026
- Dec 20, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Festival of Words 2026
The Age of Wisdom and Foolishness
Tuesday 12 - Saturday 16 May
We are very pleased to be taking part in this year's Fleet Street Quarter Festival of Words.
This year's Festival brings enlightening and transformative conversations to this historic western side of the City of London. Featuring an array of authors, journalists and thinkers across multiple genres, the Festival of Words once again celebrates Fleet Street Quarter as the place where stories have always been born.
The theme this year takes inspiration from the famous opening lines of Charles Dickens’s novel, A Tale of Two Cities: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness'.
Choose from 40 events that examine and celebrate what drives our own Age of Wisdom and Foolishness, the ideas right or wrong that challenge what has gone before and seek to predict what will come next.
We look forward to welcoming you to 17 Gough Square - the seventeenth-century house where Dr Samuel Johnson compiled his famous Dictionary and where words have always held a special place. For the full list of events across the festival, please visit the Festival of Words website.
Events taking place at Dr Johnson’s House:
Lottie Moggach: A Victorian Murder Reimagined - The Story Behind the Novel
Tuesday 12 May
6.30pm - 7.30pm
Join Lottie Moggach as she discusses her novel and the real life murder that inspired it. In conversation with Clare Clark.
Camden, 1890. Hannah Teale is a bright young woman, engaged to a budding Fleet Street reporter. When a local woman, Mary Pearcey, is arrested for a brutal double murder, Hannah is struck by a chilling realisation: she’s seen that face before. Convinced Mary is not as guilty as the tabloid press is branding her, Hannah begins her own investigation into the brutal crime. Join Lottie Moggach as she discusses her novel and the real life murder that inspired it. In conversation with Clare Clark.
Shakespeare in London: Lucy Munro and Dr Hannah Crawforth
Thursday 14 May
6pm - 7pm
Join King’s College London Shakespeare specialists Lucy Munro and Dr Hannah Crawforth as they share their discoveries about Shakespeare’s connections to this part of the city.
Long celebrated as the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare lived and worked for much of his career in London, within what is now the Fleet Street Quarter. Towards the end of his life he owned property in Blackfriars, and owned shares in the indoor playhouse there.
Join King’s College London Shakespeare specialists Lucy Munro and Dr Hannah Crawforth as they share their discoveries about Shakespeare’s connections to this part of the city, and the ways in which London shaped his plays.
