Culture

Inside the mind of Luis Severino: Mets pitcher breaks down a start pitch by pitch

Published

3 months ago

September 13, 2024

Inside the mind of Luis Severino: Mets pitcher breaks down a start pitch by pitch

TORONTO — Luis Severino has just finished his pregame work on a sunny Wednesday in Toronto. This was a simple day, catch, as the right-hander prepares for the 29th and most important start of his season, Saturday in Philadelphia.

Severino’s emergence as a reliable option in the Mets’ rotation is one of the main reasons New York’s starting staff has been a strength. The rotation ERA sits, like the Mets themselves, sixth in the National League with 16 games to go.

Severino is slated to start four of those remaining 16 games: twice against the first-place Phillies, once against rival Atlanta and, if needed, in the season finale against first-place Milwaukee. Few Mets loom as critical down the stretch as the rebound candidate who has been everything they could have wanted.

And to this point, this season has been everything Severino could have wanted.

“I haven’t done it in so long,” Severino says, smiling. “It feels really good. It feels really good to compete at this level and be healthy for so long this year.”

To get a better understanding of how Severino works — before a start and within a start — The Athletic sat down with him, scorecard in hand, to go inning by inning, batter by batter through his last start against the Cincinnati Reds. In Sunday’s 3-1 loss, Severino pitched 6 2/3 innings and allowed one run — the 12th quality start of his season.

It’s a window into the veteran’s mind at the most important juncture of the season.

Pregame

Severino previously faced the Reds in his second start of the season, on April 6. In that game, he went five innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on three hits. His main takeaway from that game was the two walks he issued — he remembered it being a higher number — and how he couldn’t issue the same kind of free passes to Cincinnati this time around.

Severino’s prep work for a start involves a lot of video study — “what they do good, what they do bad, the last 10 at-bats against a righty with my similar arm angle,” he said. “I look at the pitch sequences: What are they looking for behind in the count?”

Who are those pitchers with a similar arm angle?

“I’ve got the Phillies next. (Miami’s Edward) Cabrera threw a good game against Philadelphia — seven scoreless innings. So I’ll go to that,” Severino said. “He’s similar to me. He throws hard, his changeup is like a sinker, he’s got a good slider. I’ll go to that guy and see what he did good and why he was successful.”

Severino then blends his scouting report with one from his catcher — it’s Luis Torrens in this start — to create a game plan. Cincinnati presents one specific challenge.

“They have runners,” Severino said. “Almost everybody runs there, so understanding I have to be quick to the plate. Any hit or any double, they’re going to try to score. I have to keep that in mind. I’d rather them hit the ball hard than walk somebody.”

First inning

Jonathan India is the Reds’ leadoff batter. Severino starts him with a fastball, sweeper and sinker in that order. He likes to establish that sinker and sweeper, in particular, right away.

“It’s like a little message to the hitters: Don’t get comfortable at the plate,” he said. “I’ve got a sinker in and also a sweeper away. If I do that from the beginning, then they have a different idea of how to approach me in the second at-bat.”

He catches India looking on a full-count sinker. Next up is Elly De La Cruz, the Reds’ shortstop sure to get down-ballot MVP votes in his first full season in the majors.

“He’s the main guy there,” Severino said. “He’s the guy who’s got power, he can run. We either make good pitches to this guy or even 3-2, we’re not giving up. We’re going to throw a nasty pitch and he either swings or goes to first base. That’s the guy I don’t want to let beat me.”

He doesn’t in the first inning, as Severino retires the side in order.

Second inning

To start the second inning, Severino retires Ty France and Jake Fraley on one pitch each. Does that change how he attacks Santiago Espinal with two outs?

“I’m going after the third hitter right away,” he said. “It’s going to be a strike. The game has changed a lot, but for me, if the first two pitches are two outs, you have to take at least two strikes. That’s an advantage for me because I’m going to go after you.”

Espinal takes a first-pitch fastball strike, fouls off the next pitch and eventually strikes out on a sweeper. Six up, six down on just 20 pitches for Severino.

Third inning

Noelvi Marte leads off the third. He and France are the two Reds in the lineup Severino has never faced before.

“France and Marte have almost the same approach. I would throw them inside and the report was they were not as good against off-speed,” Severino said. “It was just trying to get ahead in the count and finish it with a breaking ball.”

Severino got ahead of Marte 0-2 with sinkers, then threw six consecutive sweepers. The last of them caught the infielder looking.

Next up is Will Benson, whom Severino had beaten consistently with fastballs last matchup until Benson tripled off him in his third at-bat. Against a hitter like Benson, Severino thinks less about the velocity of his fastball than where he locates it.

“The only spot he can hit the ball is down and in, where he has a lot of power,” he said. “If I hit my spot, if I go up and away, that’s a tough place to hit that ball. It’s not about how hard I can throw; it’s about where I can put that ball.”

Benson works a walk and moves to second on a Luke Maile groundout. In Cincinnati’s first at-bat with a runner in scoring position, Severino reaches back for something extra against India. His 1-2 sinker is clocked at 99.5 mph — the hardest pitch he’s thrown all season. India fouls that pitch off then flies out on a 98 mph sinker.

“If I get men on second or third, I don’t know how it comes to me, but I’m able to reach back and throw a little bit harder in those spots,” Severino said.

Indeed, Severino averages nearly a mile per hour more on his fastball when runners are in scoring position this season.

Fourth inning

Severino is now working through the Reds order for a second time. He threw his first slider last inning to India, and in this inning, he introduces both his changeup and his cutter.

“It’s just looking for a pitch they haven’t seen before, more against the lefties,” he said. “I want to show them not to get comfortable at the plate. Our mindset was cutter in and then changeup down and away. If you can get to those two pitches, you’re a really good hitter.”

True to what he said earlier, Severino doesn’t give in on a full-count offering to De La Cruz, walking him with a sweeper. De La Cruz leads the majors in stolen bases, and Severino throws over to first base right away.

“I’m usually really fast to home plate, so just in that situation, I have to be even quicker,” he said. “I know Torrens has a good arm, so I have to give him a chance to throw that runner out.”

De La Cruz runs on a first-pitch cutter, and Torrens nails him at second. The catcher has caught an incredible 13 of 20 runners this season.

“He was in the minor leagues for two months. I don’t know how you can have someone like that in the minor leagues,” Severino said of Torrens. “He’s so valuable for us right now. I don’t have to worry much about who’s running. It’s about making my pitch and trying to be quick and not trying to do something I’m not used to.”

Spencer Steer pops up to Torrens, and Severino gets a comebacker from France. After France made a first-pitch out on a sinker last time, Severino started him off with a sweeper for a strike.

“If you make a first-pitch out, you don’t give me much to do,” he said. “After that, we had everything in our pocket to get him out.”

Fifth inning

Severino runs into his first real jam of the day in the fifth through little fault of his own. Fraley leads off with a duck-snort double that doesn’t even reach the outfield grass on the fly. Espinal follows with a bloop single to right. Two balls hit under 65 mph, and yet it’s first and third with no outs in a scoreless game.

“It’s tough,” Severino said. “For me, it’s like, ‘OK, this happens. I have to go out there and compete. If I get out of this inning with one run, that’s good.’”

With the count 2-2 on Marte, the Mets call for a pickoff throw to first, which Severino executes in the blink of an eye. With the help of video review, they nab Espinal for a huge first out. At that point, Severino gets greedy.

“After that, let’s go for the strikeout now and try to get out of the inning with no runs,” he said.

He does just that, beating Marte again with a two-strike sweeper, though this time swinging. While Severino’s strikeout rate for the season is a pedestrian 20.7 percent (below the league average for a starting pitcher), that number balloons to 26.7 percent with a runner on third and fewer than two outs — when a strikeout is especially important. (Hitters strike out less often in that spot than they do overall.)

Against Benson, he gets whiffs on both a 1-1 sinker and a 1-2 four-seam fastball to end the threat.

That sinker is essentially a new pitch for Severino this year. How does he like to play it off his traditional four-seam fastball?

“Hitters get used to speed really quick. In this game, everybody throws hard,” he said. “So I like to play with the movement.”

Here’s an example: If Severino throws a four-seamer up and the hitter fouls it off, his expectation is that the hitter will adjust his swing to get on top of the high heater — leaving him susceptible to the sinker.

“That’s played well for me this year,” he said.

The sinker also allows him to work inside to righties more consistently.

“It was just a four-seam I was throwing middle-away, middle-away,” he said of his arsenal in the past. “After working with that sinker, I just do the same thing. I throw it middle and it’s going to go in.

“For me, everything now is about location. I don’t have to do much. I don’t have to aim my pitch. Just throw it in the middle and the pitch will do its job.”

Sixth inning

Severino is about to start his third tour of the Reds order in the sixth inning. As with most starters, that’s when Severino has been hit the hardest (.834 OPS against).

The inning starts with Maile, the ninth hitter.

“The main thing is just trying to get the first guy out,” Severino said. “You’ve got to get that guy out because after that, the best three hitters are coming. Get the first guy out, don’t let him get on base for the good part of the lineup.”

After striking out Maile on a sweeper, he surprises India with a 1-2 changeup for the swinging strikeout. This was Severino’s sixth encounter with India this season, and by the time he’d reached 1-2, he’d thrown him 36 pitches in 2024. The 37th was the first changeup. India almost smirks at the mound after swinging through the pitch.

“Torrens called that pitch there; I thought that was an amazing idea,” Severino said. “Nobody was waiting for that pitch there.”

Severino credited both Torrens and Francisco Alvarez for being active participants throughout the game, even when they’re not playing that day. He’s always seeking input from the two of them.

“The communication is the main thing for a pitcher and catcher, and they communicate really well with everybody,” he said. “Those guys do a good job.”

De La Cruz singles and moves to second when another quick pickoff attempt from Severino sails past Pete Alonso at first base. Severino shrugs it off to face Steer.

“He can steal third base, but I knew there’s two outs,” he said. “I just needed to worry about getting this guy out. We threw a changeup to get a fly ball to left field to get out of that inning.”

Seventh inning

The Mets finally break the seal on a two-out RBI single from Starling Marte in the bottom of the sixth. Now with a lead, Severino is facing the middle of the Cincinnati order having thrown 83 pitches.

France leads off with yet another soft hit, an excuse-me bloop to no man’s land between Alonso, Severino and second baseman José Iglesias. The Mets then just miss turning two on Fraley’s first-pitch grounder to first. Fraley moves to second on a wild pitch, but Severino wins a seven-pitch battle with Espinal with a fastball for a swinging strikeout.

Severino just has to get through Noelvi Marte, whom he’s struck out twice, to record seven shutout innings.

Instead, Marte loops a first-pitch sinker down the right-field line to score Fraley.

“That inning there, I would say I was not lucky enough,” Severino said. “I threw a lot of good pitches, I competed there. I know there’s a lot of things I can’t control, but the stuff I can control I try to do a good job with those.”

Manager Carlos Mendoza took the ball from Severino after 97 pitches.

What’s the right-hander thinking as he walks back to the dugout in a 1-1 game?

“About throwing another pitch (to Marte),” he said. “I could have gone with slider or changeup or fastball up and in. Something else. But at the end you can’t do anything about that.”

Postgame

The Reds rallied for two more runs in the ninth inning against Phil Maton to salvage the finale of the three-game series and snap the Mets’ nine-game winning streak. Severino’s final line included 6 2/3 innings, one run on five hits — only one of which was hit even 80 mph — with eight strikeouts and two walks.

“Just give my team a chance to win,” Severino said. “That’s the main thing for a pitcher. If you go out there and compete and give your team a chance to win, that’s really good.”

He’s done that consistently throughout the season, allowing no more than two runs in 16 of his 28 starts. The Mets will continue to lean on him down the stretch.

“Hopefully I can continue that and keep working hard and keep improving,” Severino said. “Hopefully we make the playoffs this year and I can keep showing everybody what kind of pitcher I am.”

(Photo of Luis Severino: Noah K. Murray / Associated Press)

Culture

Emma Raducanu’s turning point and the fairness of tennis wildcards

Published

2 hours ago

December 17, 2024

Press Room

Emma Raducanu’s turning point and the fairness of tennis wildcards

Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories from the past week on court.

This week, Emma Raducanu made her plans for 2025, the off-season, well, happened and the Australian Open dealt out some not-so-wild wildcards.

If you’d like to follow our fantastic tennis coverage, click here.

How will Emma Raducanu handle her rise back up the rankings?

Raducanu started 2024 ranked world No. 301 after an injury-ravaged 2023. Thanks to her ‘special’ ranking — the WTA term for a protected ranking — and the occasional wildcards that come the way of a Grand Slam champion, she could compete at most of the events she wanted to while taking breaks when necessary. Her ranking now stands at No. 57.

“One thing with the WTA is we’re pretty much made to play the events when we’re in a certain ranking. Where my ranking was and is at, I didn’t have to play every single event,” she told reporters at London’s National Tennis Centre this month.

Raducanu added that “having to play every single tournament” is a major burden not just physically, but also in producing a balanced schedule. “Having a mulligan to not play a tournament would be a really good addition,” she said.

One of the big discussion points this year has been the demands placed on players by the WTA’s increased number of mandatory events, which includes all Grand Slams, all WTA 1000 events and six 500-level tournaments for those ranked high enough for automatic entry (designed to bolster those events just below the majors and to give the 250-level events just below them more of a regional focus). The world No. 2, Iga Swiatek, lost the top spot to Aryna Sabalenka in October after not playing enough 500-level events.

“It’s not going to end well, and it makes tennis less fun for us, let’s just say,” Swiatek said in a news conference at the Cincinnati Open in August. “I don’t think it should be like that because we deserve to rest a little more.”

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Raducanu, who missed the Asian hard-court swing with a foot injury in September after organizing her season around that block of tournaments, said that the time away helped outside of physical recovery. She went to see her grandmother in China, which “was a bit of a turning point”.

“I was playing the piano, painting. Exploring my artistic side a bit. It just got me thinking. That final foot injury just had me saying, ‘I want to stay healthy next year’.

“That was probably a big moment where I wanted to spend more time and energy on my fitness.”

Raducanu, who subsequently brought on fitness coach Yutaka Nakamura for the 2025 season, wants to plan her events “holistically” after feeling her scheduling was too short-sighted. She wants to ask herself, “What is the best for me this year? What is the main objective? How are we going to build the schedule around the main objective for this year?”

Whatever she decides, Raducanu says that in 2025: “Everything I want to do is match a philosophy. I don’t want to be doing things that are bitty. Every decision I make, I want it to link to a deeper reason. Not just, ‘OK, it’s spontaneous, I’m going to do this’. Everything has to link together.”

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Emma Raducanu has done all-or-nothing tennis. Now, can she just play?

Charlie Eccleshare

Once again, how wild is a wildcard?

With prize money for just making the first round of a Grand Slam approaching $100,000 (£80,000), the countries that host them may want to consider adjusting their process of handing out wildcard entries.

It’s always been reasonably unfair to young players from countries other than Australia, France, Great Britain and the United States that they basically have no shot at receiving the free pass that host countries hand out to their own. With the windfall it now brings, it seems increasingly out of whack.

Tennis Australia released its wildcards for next month’s Australian Open on Friday.

Stan Wawrinka got one. He’s 39, a three-time Grand Slam champion who won the tournament in 2014. He also got whipped in the first round of the U.S. Open by Italy’s Mattia Bellucci. He’s ranked world No. 161 right now.

Stan Wawrinka beat Rafael Nadal in the 2014 men’s singles final. (Matt King / Getty Images)

Other than the entries they swap with other Grand Slam hosts and the champion of an Asia-Pacific playoff, the Aussies kept the rest for themselves. The other men:

Tristan Schoolkate, 23, 1-3 in 2024 on the ATP Tour, ranked 168.
Li Tu, 28, 0-4 on the ATP Tour in 2024, ranked 174. He did take a set off Carlos Alcaraz at the U.S. Open.
James McCabe, 0-4 on the ATP Tour in 2024, ranked 256.

On the women’s side, Daria Saville, No. 108, and Ajla Tomljanovic, No. 109, are defensible. They’ve battled injuries in recent years, have been inside the top 50 and are right on the cusp of a main draw spot. They may very well get in on ranking once withdrawals begin.

Maya Joint, 18, isn’t far behind at No. 116, but she’s just 1-2 at the tour level. Emerson Jones is 16 and ranked No. 375. Talia Gibson is 20 and ranked No. 140 but is yet to win a tour-level match.

Grand Slams rightly market themselves as the pinnacle of tennis. That may be true, but they’re not nearly as tough as they could be with fewer home-country free passes into their main draws.

Matt Futterman

And how long is a piece of string (or a tennis off-season)?

Do you want to know why players complain so often about the off-season? Because there isn’t one. Not really.

Ben Shelton took four days off.

Carlos Alcaraz didn’t touch his rackets for 10 days, which might sound like a lot.

Players competing in the United Cup have to be in Australia on Christmas Eve, a mere eight days away. It takes two days just to get there from much of the world. A handful of top players, including Taylor Fritz, are heading to Abu Dhabi for the World Tennis League exhibition that runs December 19-22. Many of them use it as part of their pre-season prep.

Fritz played his last 2024 match at the Davis Cup on November 20. Between then and landing in Abu Dhabi, he will have squeezed in a 10-day fitness block in Florida and a 10-day on-court camp in L.A. Factor in intercontinental travel and you can count the off-days on just about one hand.

That’s not an off-season. That’s a long weekend.

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Matt Futterman

🏆 The winners of the week

🎾 WTA:

🏆 Viktorija Golubic (No. 7 seed) def. Celine Naef 7-5, 6-4 to win the Limoges Open (125) in Limoges, France. It is her fourth WTA 125 title.

📅 Coming up

🎾 ATP

📍Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: ATP Next Gen Finals featuring Arthur Fils, Alex Michelsen, Jakub Mensik, Learner Tien.

🎾 Exhibition

📍Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: World Tennis League featuring Iga Swiatek, Daniil Medvedev, Aryna Sabalenka, Nick Kyrgios.

Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men’s and women’s tours continue.

(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)

Culture

Joao Lucas Reis da Silva, the first out gay active professional male tennis player, was just posting a selfie

Published

10 hours ago

December 16, 2024

Press Room

Joao Lucas Reis da Silva, the first out gay active professional male tennis player, was just posting a selfie

Saturday, December 7, Joao Lucas Reis da Silva, a 24-year-old professional tennis player, did about the most normal thing anyone does these days. He posted a couple selfie on Instagram.

It was his partner’s birthday, so he posted a sweet carousel of them posing by the water in Rio de Janeiro. “I love you so much,” he wrote. The post made him a trailblazer — the first out gay active professional male tennis player — but he was just wishing his partner a happy birthday.

“I didn’t think about it… I just wanted to post a picture with him,” Reis da Silva told The Athletic Sunday from São Paolo, in his first international interview since he inadvertently made himself a part of tennis history.

About an hour earlier, he had won a tournament for the first time in four years, defeating Daniel Dutra da Silva 7-5, 1-6, 6-4 to lift the Procopio Cup and earn a spot in the qualifying at the Rio Open, the ATP 500 event he has played the past two years. Not a bad few days for the world No. 367.

“It’s been a crazy week but in the end it was perfect,” he said. After two long injury layoffs, the 24-year-old said he has played the best tennis of his life of late, reaching the semifinals of a tournament in Chile before this run to the title in São Paulo. Even as he felt the tennis world watching him in a way it never had before.

“I didn’t feel pressure,” he said. “I was happy. I had my boyfriend here with me. He was supporting me. My whole team was here.”

The women’s tennis tour has had numerous out gay players, including all-time greats Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova, who won 98 Grand Slam titles between them across singles and doubles.

Men’s tennis has not been this way. Bill Tilden, the American star who dominated tennis in the 1920s, never publicly discussed his sexuality outside of his 1948 book, “My Story: A Champion’s Memoirs.” Brian Vahaly, who played in the 2000s and reached a career-high of world No. 57, and Bobby Blair, on tour in the 1980s, came out after they had retired from professional tennis.

Reis da Silva said Sunday that he told his family and friends that he was gay five years ago. “Before that, it was tough,” he explained.

“I couldn’t say too much about myself to my coaches, to my friends. When I tried to love myself, that was something different. It changed my life, changed everything, the relationship with my parents, with my coaches.”

Over a year ago, Reis da Silva fell in love with Gui Sampaio Ricardo, a Brazilian actor and model. Then Ricardo’s birthday rolled around for 2024, and Reis da Silva did what 24-year-olds do.

“I was like, ‘Oh my god, it’s my boyfriend’s birthday. Like happy birthday. I love you.’ And then, boom!

“It was so normal for me that I didn’t think about it.”

Messages and support from big names inside and outside the tennis world began to roll in. Lulu Santos, a massive music star in Brazil, sent him a message. Thiago Monteiro, Brazil’s current No. 1, added heart emojis to the post. He got a like from Diego Hypolito, a gay Brazilian gymnast who won a silver medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Just like that, this largely unknown player from Recife, a coastal city in Brazil’s northeast corner, had become a sports and cultural icon. He said he expected to receive some negative reactions, but the responses have been “99.9 percent positive.”

“I’m really happy that people respect me, that people look at me, admire me maybe,” he said.

Joao Lucas Reis da Silva on his way to winning the Procopio Cup in São Paolo, Brazil. (Joao Pires / Photojump)

Speaking in an interview with The Telegraph in 2018, Vahaly said that he heard homophobic comments from other players in the locker room, describing it as “part of the culture.” He added that he hoped for a time when “we can say, ‘Congratulations,’ and then quickly move on. For people to be defined by their sexuality is what we need to get past.”

Reis da Silva, who said he was aware of Vahaly being honored by the U.S. Open (he will be USTA president beginning in 2025), remembers being 18 and hearing someone saying something offensive in the gym.

“In the locker rooms and at tournaments I used to hear some things that kind of bothered me,” he said.

“But when I started to tell everyone that I’m gay and these people knew about it, they stopped saying these things. It’s like when they have someone close to them that is gay, they respect them more. They stop doing sh**** comments,” Reis da Silva said.

“Maybe that’s a big thing to stop it — if people see someone in the top that is gay, things can change. People might stop saying things they shouldn’t that hurt people.”

Alison Van Uytvanck, the recently retired former world No. 37 who is married to physio Emilie Vermeiren, said that she never received any negative comments in the locker room. In an interview earlier this year, Van Uytvanck told The Athletic that “it is kind of surprising“ that the ATP Tour was yet to have an out, active male player.

“If only one player, like a top 100 player, would be open about it, it would be easier for others to open up.”

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Reis da Silva said seeing a role model in the sport would have made a huge difference to him.

“When I was 16, 15, I had problems accepting myself.

“Maybe if I had had someone playing saying, ‘I’m gay, I’m here, I’m competing for the big tournaments,’ it would have been easier for me to accept myself and to love myself. People have told me that. People told me that they admire me. That I inspire people. So it’s a big deal for me and them.

“I don’t have a problem with being remembered as the great gay tennis player,” he said, “but I don’t want to talk about that every time, you know?

“I know there will be a lot of attention on me.”

Born into a tennis-playing family, Reis da Silva said he began hitting balls when he was three. He followed in the footsteps of his brother, who is six years older and who competed at the junior level. As a little boy, Reis da Silva was so obsessed with tennis that he would cry when his father told him it was time to go home.

He began to compete nationally at 10, leaving home at 13 for São Paulo, where he lived and trained for seven years before he moved to Rio de Janeiro. Reis da Silva prefers to battle from the baseline, rather than rush the net, and he rates his service return and his backhand as his biggest weapons.

“I love to break serves,” he said. “I like to stay there in the point and be aggressive in my forehand and play big rallies.”

He has competed throughout the U.S., Europe and Australia in addition to South America, playing the Grand Slams as a junior. After the win in São Paulo, he plans to take a week off, including a few days of holiday with his boyfriend in Porto de Galinhas, the beach town known for its natural pools and white sand. He will then spend Christmas with his boyfriend’s family in Goiania, a small city in the center of the country near the capital, Brasilia.

Joao Lucas Reis da Silva hitting his favorite shot during the Wimbledon boys’ singles in 2018. (Michael Steele / Getty Images)

After that, he will return to Rio to begin preparations for some Challenger tournaments (one rung below the ATP Tour) that lead into the South American ATP Tour swing in February and the Rio Open. His big goal for 2025 is to play in the qualifying tournament for Roland Garros — and to build the tennis life he wants.

“It’s an individual sport, so you can be whatever you want,” he said hopefully. “Everybody will accept you.”

(Top photo: Joao Pires / Photojump)

Culture

Can You Identify These London Locations in the Books of Charles Dickens?

Published

18 hours ago

December 16, 2024

Press Room

Can You Identify These London Locations in the Books of Charles Dickens?

A strong sense of place can deeply influence a story, and in some cases, the setting can even feel like a character itself — and in the works of Charles Dickens, that character was 19th-century London. This week’s literary geography quiz highlights locations or landmarks around the city that are mentioned in five of Dickens’s books, and each question offers a London-themed hint to help jog your memory. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. Links to the books will be listed at the end of the quiz if you’d like to do further reading.