London Fog: The Biography. By Christine L. Corton (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2015) 391 pp. $35.00

Fog was an important part of London life from the 1830s until the 1960s, although it existed earlier and has just recently returned. Fog outbreaks can still cause trouble—suspension of transport, accidents, and deaths through breathing its noxious pollution. But it is now far less devastating than the so-called “peasoupers” or “London particulars” of the earlier period. Nonetheless, the present fogs, which are apparently caused by automobile emissions, are hardly insignificant, though they are white rather than black or yellow, far less filthy, and not disposed to cover people and objects with black soot. The earlier great fogs were caused, at first, by the industrial use of coal, but increasingly, as the nineteenth century progressed, by coal’s domestic use. The friendly hearth was much valued and heavily resistant to change. Not until July 5, 1956, when an effective Clean Air Act was passed, did the air begin to clear; even...