Six of the best taxis in literature

Lewis Taxis • 4 January 2023

Taxis don’t just simply take you from A to B. They are a portal for adventure and anecdotes. Every taxi driver has hundreds of stories and every passenger has met a taxi driver who has a story to tell. It’s no surprise then that taxi drivers and taxis are often featured in works of literature as the setting or the plot drivers. Below we’ve compiled a list of some of the best taxis in literature for your reading pleasure and entertainment during your next taxi ride.

1. A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond

A British favourite, the iconic Paddington Bear has his first social faux pas in the back of a London taxi. After having been rescued by Mr and Mrs Brown from Paddington Station, they feed him sugary, sticky buns. On the way home in a black cab, the unwitting Paddington covers the taxi in crumbs and sugar, much to the annoyance of the London taxi driver.

2. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

In this classic novel, a taxi provides the setting for intimate flirtation during a drive around Paris. The narrator, Jake Barnes, falls in love with the liberated Lady Brett Ashley in a romance that is doomed to fail. The novel ends with a circular setting, returning to another taxi, and driving through the streets of Madrid, with Jake and Brett lamenting what could have been.

3. Finding Violet Park by Jenny Valentine

Lucas Swain, the narrator of this children’s mystery story, seeks to find out what happened to Violet Park. All he knows is that an urn containing her ashes was forgotten on the back seat of a taxi. After being found by the taxi driver, it has spent years on a shelf in the taxi company's office, where it is finally discovered by Lucas. In an attempt to solve the mystery, he decides to take the urn and find out how it ended up in the back of that taxi.

4. The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen

Newly arrived from England, eleven-year-old Henrietta Mountjoy is driven through Paris by a taxi driver at the opening of this novel. Although she travels with her companion, Miss Fisher, she is struck by how grey and melancholy the city is and finds that her expectations of the city do not match reality.

5. London Taxi Driver by David Dabydeen

The only poem on this list but taxi related nonetheless. Dabydeen’s poem follows a taxi driver on his journey from Tooting in South London to Waterloo. The poem is full of echoes of taxi driver speech and the curses of the cockney cabbie as well as the journey of an Indian labourer from Berbice to London. It creates the perfect cultural melting pot, much like London’s taxis themselves.

6. The Accident by Ismail Kadare

When an airport taxi overturns on the way to Vienna airport, the two passengers, both Albanian immigrants, are killed. This taxi driver survives. This mystery story follows the taxi driver’s regaining consciousness and attempting to recall what caused him to veer off the road and crash. As he comes to, he remembers seeing something disturbing in the back of the taxi…

Inspired to take a taxi?

If this list has got you ready for your next trip, why not take a taxi? Lewis Taxis is a professional taxi company with over 50 years of experience, we go above and beyond as a taxi operator by offering private and corporate trips as well as efficient courier services in Coventry and across the UK.

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