William Blake's poem "London" describes the city as a corrupted society dominated by materialism and class divides, where the working class lives in a dark, oppressive world suffering under the powerful. Charles Dickens was inspired by London's poverty from his own experiences to depict the grim underworld of the poor in his novels. Virginia Woolf used the settings of London in "Mrs. Dalloway" to show the differing emotional responses of characters to the city.