"By Permission of Heaven, Adrian Tinniswood's magnificent new account of the Great Fire of London, explores the history of cataclysm and its concequences, from that first small blaze to the decades-long work of re-building. The statistics of the disaster are terrible: 436 acres of closely packed streets burned; 13,200 houses destroyed; ten million pounds reperesented the City's annual income for 800 years. But the Great Fire of London wasn't simplya tragedy of economics or architecture. It wrecked lives and destroyed livelihoods, it killed and maimed, and it drove Londoners mad in their quest for vengence. By Permission of Heaven pieces together the untold human story of the Fire and its aftermath - the panic and terror, the bewilderment and violence and chaos, the search for scapegoats, the rebirth of a city. Above all, it provides an unsurpassable recreation of what happened to schoolchildren and servants, courtiers and clergymen when the streets of London ran with fire and "by ye Permission of Heaven, Hell broke loose on this Protestant City.""