The Napoleon of Notting Hill The Napoleon of Notting Hill The Napoleon of Notting Hill is a novel written by G. K. Chesterton in 1904, set in a nearly unchanged London in 1984. Although the novel is set in the future, it is, in effect, set in an alternative reality of Chesterton's own period, with no advances in technology or changes in the class system or attitudes. It postulates an impersonal government, not described in any detail, but apparently content to operate through a figurehead king, randomly chosen. The dreary succession of randomly selected Kings of England is broken up when Auberon Quin, who cares
Notting Hill here in his memoirs "Far Off Things" (1922) and "Things Near and Far" (1923). His mystical work "The Hill of Dreams" (1907, though written ten years earlier) has scenes set in Notting Hill; it is here that the protagonist Lucian Taylor encounters the beautiful bronze-haired prostitute who will later connive at his death. The reputation of the district altered over the course of the 20th century. As middle-class households ceased to employ servants, the large Notting Hill houses lost their market and were increasingly split into multiple occupation. During the Blitz a number of buildings were damaged or destroyed by