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From rag-gatherers to royalty, from fish knives to Freemasons: everyday life in Victorian London. Like its acclaimed companion volumes, Elizabeth's London, Restoration London and Dr Johnson's London, this book is the product of the author's passionate interest in the realities of everyday life so often left out of history books. This period of mid Victorian London covers a huge span: Victoria's wedding and the place of the royals in popular esteem; how the very poor lived, the underworld, prostitution, crime, prisons and transportation; the public utilities - Bazalgette on sewers and road design, Chadwick on pollution and sanitation; private charities - Peabody, Burdett Coutts - and workhous...
The practical realities of everyday life are rarely described in history books. To remedy this, and to satisfy her own curiosity about the lives of our ancestors, Liza Picard immersed herself in contemporary sources - diaries and journals, almanacs and newspapers, government papers and reports, advice books and memoirs - to examine the substance of life in mid-18th century London. The fascinating result of her research, Dr. Johnson's London introduces the reader to every facet of that period: from houses and gardens to transport and traffic; from occupations and work to pleasure and amusements; from health and medicine to sex, food, and fashion. Stops along the way focus on education, etique...
'From poverty to pets, from medicine to magic, from slang to sex, from wallpaper to women's rights' A glorious portrait of life in London from 1660-1670 by the bestselling author of ELIZABETH'S LONDON. Making use of every possible contemporary source - diaries, memoirs, advice books, government papers, almanacs, even the Register of Patents - Liza Picard presents an enthralling picture of how life in London was really lived in the 1600s: the houses and streets, gardens and parks, cooking, clothes and jewellery, cosmetics, hairdressing, housework, laundry and shopping, medicine and dentistry, sex, education, hobbies, etiquette, law and crime, religion and popular beliefs.
'Reading this book is like taking a ride on a marvellously exhilarating time-machine, alive with colour, surprise and sheer merriment' Jan Morris Elizabethan London reveals the practical details of everyday life so often ignored in conventional history books. It begins with the River Thames, the lifeblood of Elizabethan London, before turning to the streets and the traffic in them. Liza Picard surveys building methods and shows us the interior decor of the rich and the not-so-rich, and what they were likely to be growing in their gardens. Then the Londoners of the time take the stage, in all their amazing finery. Plague, smallpox and other diseases afflicted them. But food and drink, sex and marriage and family life provided comfort. Cares could be forgotten in a playhouse or the bull-baiting of bear-baiting rings, or watching a good cockfight. Liza Picard's wonderfully skilful and vivid evocation of the London of Elizabeth I enables us to share the delights, as well as the horrors, of the everyday lives of our sixteenth-century ancestors.
DIVThis remarkable book looks at hundreds of autobiographies penned between 1760 and 1900 to offer an intimate firsthand account of how the Industrial Revolution was experienced by the working class. The Industrial Revolution brought not simply misery and poverty. On the contrary, Griffin shows how it raised incomes, improved literacy, and offered exciting opportunities for political action. For many, this was a period of new, and much valued, sexual and cultural freedom./divDIV /divDIVThis rich personal account focuses on the social impact of the Industrial Revolution, rather than its economic and political histories. In the tradition of best-selling books by Liza Picard, Judith Flanders, and Jerry White, Griffin gets under the skin of the period and creates a cast of colorful characters, including factory workers, miners, shoemakers, carpenters, servants, and farm laborers./div
The Middle Ages re-created through the cast of pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales. Among the surviving records of fourteenth-century England, Geoffrey Chaucer’s poetry is the most vivid. Chaucer wrote about everyday people outside the walls of the English court—men and women who spent days at the pedal of a loom, or maintaining the ledgers of an estate, or on the high seas. In Chaucer’s People, Liza Picard transforms The Canterbury Tales into a masterful guide for a gloriously detailed tour of medieval England, from the mills and farms of a manor house to the lending houses and Inns of Court in London. In Chaucer’s People we meet again the motley crew of pilgrims on the road to Canterb...
How did you clean your teeth in the 1660s? What make-up did you wear? What pets did you keep? Making use of every possible contemporary source, Liza Picard presents an engrossing picture of how life in London was really lived in an age of Samuel Pepys, the libertine court of Charles II and the Great Fire of London. The topics covered include houses and streets, gardens and parks, cooking, clothes and jewellery, cosmetics, hairdressing, housework, laundry and shopping, medicine and dentistry, sex education, hobbies, etiquette, law and crime, religion and popular belief. The London of 350 years ago is brought (and sometimes horrifyingly) to life. 'A joy of a book ... It radiates throughout that quality so essential in a good historian: infinite curiosity' Observer
"Step back in time and discover the sights, sounds and smells of London through the ages in this enthralling journey into the capital's rich, teeming and occasionally hazardous past. [The author is] your guide to six extraordinary periods in London's history -- the age of Shakespeare, medieval city life, the plague, coffee houses, the reign of Victoria and the post-Blitz recovery." --Book flap.
'A Baedeker of the past, absorbing and revealing in equal measure' Peter Ackroyd 'Brings the age's tortuous splendours and profound murkiness vividly to life' Observer When Dr Johnson published his great Dictionary in 1755, London was the biggest city in Europe. The opulence of the rich and the comfort of the 'middling' sort contrasted sharply with the back-breaking labour and pitiful wages of the poor. Executions were rated one of the best amusements, but there was bullock-hunting and cock-fighting too. Crime, from pickpockets to highwaymen, was rife, prisons were poisonous and law-enforcement rudimentary. Dr Johnson's London is the result of the author's passionate interest in the practical details of the everyday life of our ancestors: the streets, houses and gardens; cooking, housework, laundry and shopping; clothes and cosmetics; medicine, sex, hobbies, education and etiquette. The book spans the years 1740 to 1770, starting when the gin craze was gaining ground and ending when the east coast of America was still British. While brilliantly recording the strangeness and individuality of the past, Dr Johnson's London continually reminds us of parallels with the present day.
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The Thames stank. The main ingredient was human waste. In previous centuries, the Thames run sweetly, and salmon and swans thrived in it. But by 1841, the census counted 1,945,000 people in London, and probably more if you include the shadowy ones who always evade officialdom. #2 The bouquet of London’s streets was made up of animal dung, human excrement, and decaying brickwork. The sewers were old, and could not be enlarged to cope with the increased flow. #3 The Victorians were proud that they had made a breakthrough in cleaning up London, when water closets became a normal part of a house in 1857. But the Great Stink of 1858 proved that their efforts were futile. #4 Thinking Londoners began to realize that government through medieval parochial boards was not viable in the nineteenth century, and in 1845 London’s first Metropolitan Board of Works was set up.