Half Moon Street is a street in the

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a London borough with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in Greater London, England. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It contains a large par ...

, London. The street runs from

Curzon Street Curzon Street is a street in Mayfair, London, within the W1J postcode district, that ranges from Fitzmaurice Place, past Shepherd Market, to Park Lane. It is named after Sir Nathaniel Curzon, 2nd Baronet, who inherited the landholding during ...

in the north to

Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, England, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road (England), A4 road that connects central London to ...

in the south.

History

Half Moon Street was built from 1730. It takes its name from a public house that once stood on the corner with Piccadilly."Half Moon Street, W1." in

Notable inhabitants

James Boswell James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 ( N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of the English writer Samuel Johnson, '' Life of Samuel ...

, biographer of

Dr Johnson Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary criticism, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicograp ...

, had lodgings in the street in 1768 at the home of Mr Russell, an upholsterer. Lola Montez, mistress of King

Ludwig I of Bavaria Ludwig I or Louis I (; 25 August 1786 – 29 February 1868) was King of Bavaria from 1825 until the German revolutions of 1848–49, 1848 revolutions in the German states. When he was crown prince, he was involved in the Napoleonic Wars. As ki ...

, lived in the street in 1849. The street was known for its genteel lodgings and apartments which was still the case when Somerset Maugham visited in 1930. The WWI poet

Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World ...

had lodgings in 14 Half Moon Street. In the 20th century,

Sax Rohmer Arthur Henry "Sarsfield" Ward (15 February 1883 – 1 June 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was an English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Fu Manchu."Rohmer, Sax" by Jack Adrian in David ...

(1883–1959), creator of Dr Fu Manchu, once lived in the street. A blue plaque marks the spot.

Buildings

Among the

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

s in the street are parts of Flemings Mayfair Hotel and Green Park Hotel. Other listed buildings include numbers 6, 7 and 8, 12a, 14, 15, 24, and 25.

In popular culture

Half Moon Street is the setting for the first act of Oscar Wilde's play ''

The Importance of Being Earnest ''The Importance of Being Earnest, a Trivial Comedy for Serious People'' is a play by Oscar Wilde, the last of his four drawing-room plays, following ''Lady Windermere's Fan'' (1892), ''A Woman of No Importance'' (1893) and ''An Ideal Husban ...

'' and serves as the character Algernon's home. Sax Rohmer made repeated use of the street in his work. In other early-20th century fiction,

Sapper A sapper, also called a combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, preparing field defenses ...

's hero Bulldog Drummond lived in the street. The street is the London address of the fictional detective Paul Temple and his wife Louise "Steve" Temple and also frequently appears in the Georgian and Regency novels of

Georgette Heyer Georgette Heyer (; 16 August 1902 – 4 July 1974) was an English novelist and short-story writer, in both the Regency romance and detective fiction genres. Her writing career began in 1921, when she turned a story conceived for her ail ...

. In the 1986 film thriller '' Half Moon Street'', the main character lives in a flat on the street. 61 Half Moon Street is the address of Belinda Blumenthal of Rocky Flintstone's ''Belinda Blinked'' series, as mentioned by Cian O'Mahony in 'Footnotes: Understanding The "Timeline"' in Season 6 of the My Dad Wrote a Porno podcast. In the Aubrey-Maturin novel series by

Patrick O'Brian Patrick O'Brian (12 December 1914 – 2 January 2000), born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series. These sea novels are set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and ...

, the fictional physician and spy

Stephen Maturin Stephen Maturin () is a fictional character in the Aubrey–Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. The series portrays his career as a physician, naturalist and spy in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and the long pursuit of ...

lived on Half Moon Street with his wife Diana Villiers at the start of '' The Ionian Mission''. In the A. J. Raffles story '' A Trap to Catch a Cracksman'' by E. W. Hornung, the prizefighter Barney Maguire’s residence is on Half Moon Street, where much of the story takes place.

References

External links

Streets in the City of Westminster {{London-road-stub