Editions

  • The Lonely Londoners
    Paperback 2006
  • The Lonely Londoners
    eBook 2014
Penguin Logo
  • Articles, Games and more...

    Articles
    • Recommendations
    • Features
    • Extracts
    • Quizzes
    • View all articles
    Children's articles
    • Recommendations
    • Extracts
    • Games & activities
    • Quizzes
    • View all children's articles
    Penguin Shop
    • Book bundles
      Book bundles
    • Penguin gifts
      Penguin gifts
    • Signed & special editions
      Signed & special editions
    • Writing workshops
      Writing workshops
    • View all
      View all

    • Events
    • Podcasts
    • Apps
    • Newsletter

    • Penguin Classics
    • VINTAGE
  • Categories

    Fiction
    • Action & adventure
    • Classics
    • Crime, thrillers & mysteries
    • General & literary fiction
    • Graphic novels
    • Romance
    • Poetry
    • Horror
    • Short stories
    • View all fiction
    Non-fiction
    • Art, architecture & photography
    • Biographies
    • Business, economics & law
    • Food & drink
    • Health & lifestyle
    • History
    • Politics, philosophy & culture
    • Science & nature
    • Sports
    • View all non-fiction
    Children's
    • 0 - 18 months
    • 18 months - 3 years
    • 3 - 5 years
    • 5 - 7 years
    • 7 - 9 years
    • 9 - 12 years
    • View all children's

    • Puffin

      Puffin

    • Ladybird

      Ladybird


    • Audiobooks
    • Gifts & box sets
    • Must-read books of 2019
    • 100 must-read classic books
  • Authors A-Z

    • A
    • B
    • C
    • D
    • E
    • F
    • G
    • H
    • I
    • J
    • K
    • L
    • M
    • N
    • O
    • P
    • Q
    • R
    • S
    • T
    • U
    • V
    • W
    • X
    • Y
    • Z
    • All Authors A-Z


    Featured Authors

    Philip Pullman

    Margaret Atwood

    Lee Child

    Jacqueline Wilson

    Ian McEwan

    Naomi Klein

    Malcolm Gladwell

    Toni Morrison

  • About Penguin Random House UK

    About Us
    • Overview
    • Company history
    • Leadership Team
    • News
    • Blogs
    Work with us
    • Authors
    • Careers
    • Rights and permissions
    • Penguin Connect
    • Partnerships
    • Penguin Ventures
    • Sales & distribution
    • Student Design Award
    Publishing houses
    • Cornerstone
    • Ebury
    • Michael Joseph
    • Penguin General
    • Penguin Press
    • Penguin Random House Audio
    • Penguin Random House Children's
    • Transworld
    • VINTAGE
    Creative Responsibility
    • About Creative Responsibility
    • Reading
    • Community
    • Inclusion
    • Sustainability
    • WriteNow
    • Penguin Talks
    Contact us
    • Offices
    • Media contacts
    • Catalogues
  • Gifts for bibliophiles

    Penguin's Christmas Gift Guide
    • Beautiful gift books
    • Festive Christmas stories
    • Books for your secret santa
    • Best books for children
    • Must-read celebrity memoirs of 2019
    • The biggest books of 2019
    • View all
    Penguin Shop
    • Penguin gifts
      Penguin gifts
    • Book bundles
      Book bundles
    • Special and signed editions
      Special and signed editions
    • Writing workshop
      Writing workshop
    • View all
      View all

  • Home
  • The Lonely Londoners
The Lonely Londoners
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • Published: 27/07/2006

  • ISBN: 9780141188416

  • Length: 160  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 9mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 123g

  • RRP: £8.99

The Lonely Londoners

  • Series: Penguin Modern Classics

  • Sam Selvon

  • Nasta Susheila (Introducer)

  • Paperback
  • Ebook
  • Hive Waterstones Amazon

Both devastating and funny, The Lonely Londoners is an unforgettable account of immigrant experience - and one of the great twentieth-century London novels. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Susheila Nasta.

At Waterloo Station, hopeful new arrivals from the West Indies step off the boat train, ready to start afresh in 1950s London. There, homesick Moses Aloetta, who has already lived in the city for years, meets Henry 'Sir Galahad' Oliver and shows him the ropes. In this strange, cold and foggy city where the natives can be less than friendly at the sight of a black face, has Galahad met his Waterloo? But the irrepressible newcomer cannot be cast down. He and all the other lonely new Londoners - from shiftless Cap to Tolroy, whose family has descended on him from Jamaica - must try to create a new life for themselves. As pessimistic 'old veteran' Moses watches their attempts, they gradually learn to survive and come to love the heady excitements of London.

Sam Selvon (b. 1923) was born in San Fernando, Trinidad. In 1950 Selvon left Trinidad for the UK where after hard times of survival he established himself as a writer with A Brighter Sun (1952), An Island is a World (1955), The Lonely Londoners (1956), Ways of Sunlight (1957), Turn Again Tiger (1958), I Hear Thunder (1963), The Housing Lark (1965), The Plains of Caroni (1970), Moses Ascending (1975) and Moses Migrating (1983).

If you enjoyed The Lonely Londoners, you might like Jean Rhys's Voyage in the Dark or Shiva Naipaul's Fireflies, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'His Lonely Londoners has acquired a classics status since it appeared in 1956 as the definitive novel about London's West Indians'
Financial Times

'The unforgettable picaresque ... a vernacular comedy of pathos'
Guardian

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • Published: 27/07/2006

  • ISBN: 9780141188416

  • Length: 160  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 9mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 123g

  • RRP: £8.99


  • Share at

  • Facebook - facebook Facebook - facebook Facebook - facebook Facebook - facebook
  • Twitter - twitter Twitter - twitter Twitter - twitter Twitter - twitter
  • Pinterest - pinterest Pinterest - pinterest
  • Email - email Email - email
  • Whatsapp - whatsapp Whatsapp - whatsapp

More in this Series

View all View all
  • Coolie
    Coolie
    • Mulk Raj Anand
  • Babette's Feast
    Babette's Feast
    • Isak Dinesen
  • There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbour's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales
    There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbour's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales
    • Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
  • Romance of the Thin Man and the Fat Lady
    Romance of the Thin Man and the Fat Lady
    • Robert Coover
  • Babylon Revisited
    Babylon Revisited
    • F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Mersey Sound
    The Mersey Sound
    • Adrian Henri (and others)
  • The Gifts of War
    The Gifts of War
    • Margaret Drabble
  • Little Man, What Now?
    Little Man, What Now?
    • Hans Fallada
  • The Great Science Fiction
    The Great Science Fiction
    • H G Wells
  • Summer
    Summer
    • Edith Wharton
  • Forty Stories
    Forty Stories
    • Dave Eggers
    • Donald Barthelme
  • Killer in the Rain
    Killer in the Rain
    • Raymond Chandler
  • The Strange Crime of John Boulnois
    The Strange Crime of John Boulnois
    • G K Chesterton
  • Exile and the Kingdom
    Exile and the Kingdom
    • Albert Camus
  • Poems of the Great War
    Poems of the Great War
  • The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
    The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
    • Sloan Wilson
  • Her Lover
    Her Lover
    • Albert Cohen
    • David Coward
  • Americana
    Americana
    • Don DeLillo
  • The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
    The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
    • Giorgio Bassani
  • Strong Opinions
    Strong Opinions
    • Vladimir Nabokov
View all View all

About the Author

Sam Selvon

Sam Selvon was born in San Fernando (Trinidad) in 1923 and worked in his homeland as a wireless operator and reporter. In 1950 he left Trinidad for the UK where he established himself as a writer with A Brighter Sun (1952). Many other books followed, including his best-known novel, The Lonely Londoners (1956), and its two sequels, Moses Ascending (1975) and Moses Migrating (1983). He moved to Canada in the late 1970s and died in 1994.

Sam Selvon

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, offers and more 

  • Please enter an email.

    Please enter a valid email address.

By signing up, I confirm that I'm over 16. To find out what personal data we collect and how we use it, please visit our Privacy Policy

Thank you for signing up to the Penguin Newsletter

Keep an eye out in your inbox.

Oops! it seems you've already subscribed to this newsletter. View all newsletter

Subscription failed, please try again

About us
  • Our company
  • Work with us
  • Getting published external-link-icon
  • Careers
  • Publishing houses
  • Creative Responsibility
  • Contact us
  • Send website feedback
Useful links
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Modern slavery statement
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & conditions
  • Help & FAQs
  • Gender pay gap reports
  • Industry commitment to professional behaviour
  • Permissions
Stay connected

Follow Penguin

  • Facebook Facebook
  • Instagram Instagram
  • Twitter Twitter
  • Youtube Youtube

Follow Puffin

  • Puffin Facebook Puffin Facebook
  • Puffin Instagram Puffin Instagram
  • Puffin Twitter Puffin Twitter
  • Puffin YouTube Puffin YouTube

Follow Ladybird

  • Ladybird Facebook Ladybird Facebook
  • Ladybird Instagram Ladybird Instagram
  • Ladybird Twitter Ladybird Twitter
  • Ladybird YouTube Ladybird YouTube

© 1995 - 2019

Penguin Books Ltd.

Registered number: 861590 England.

Registered office: 80 Strand, London,

WC2R 0RL UK.

Penguin Random House

Penguin Books Limited

A Penguin Random House Company.

We use cookies on this site and by continuing to browse it you agree to us sending you cookies.

For more on our cookies and changing your settings click here.