After World War II, London still had many unrepaired buildings and bombed sites, and the fear of nuclear war, stemming from the Cold War between the US and Soviet Russia, was pervasive: “During the Second World War, the United Kingdom experienced more than 30,000 air raid attacks, leaving bomb sites across its towns and cities. By the 1950s, many of these bomb sites remained, as the country struggled to get back onto its feet” (Staveley-Wadham, Rose. “War Scars.” The British Newspaper Archive, 19 May 2022). This setting impacts the novel’s events and characters in significant ways. When the Scotts leave California during the second Red Scare, moving to London, Janie is incredibly disappointed in what she encounters there.

For Janie, the “bomb scarred and desolate” city simply can’t compare to her sunny home in southern California (13), and this initially contributes to her petulance and childishness. Bomb drills follow her from one country to the other because of the fears prompted by the Cold War, and unease and anxiety affect characters like Mrs. Parrish, their landlady, and Janie’s teachers. Thus, the landscape, in many ways, reflects the psychological reality of many Londoners who witnessed the Blitz and were compelled to send their children out of the city during the war for their safety. Janie thinks that “[g]oing from Los Angeles to London in 1952 [i]s like leaving a Technicolor movie and walking into a black-and-white one” (15). The war may be over, but its profound effects linger, physically and emotionally.

On the other hand, England is historically and mythologically rich, and its national lore includes Arthurian legends, fairies and folkloric creatures, and ancient sites such as Stonehenge that suggest a mysticism and world of magical possibility that the US doesn’t share. With its “history of druids, wizards and witches,” London seems like a much more apt setting for a work of magical realism and “modern magic” (“The Magic of Britain.” British Guild of Tourist Guides, 2 Dec. 2016). Many fantasy texts use England, and London specifically, as their setting for these reasons. Given London’s historical reality and the ancient city’s association with magic, it is a particularly apt setting for a novel like The Apothecary, which straddles the line between realism and fantasy.