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Dr. Johnson's London
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 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, etiquette, public executions as popular entertainment, and a melange of other historical curiosities.
This book spans the period from 1740 to 1770-very much the city of Dr. Johnson, who published his great Dictionary in 1755. It starts when the gin craze was gaining ground and ends just before America ceased being a colony. In its enthralling review of an exhilarating era, Dr. Johnson's London brilliantly records the strangeness and individuality of the past--and continually reminds us of parallels with the present day.
This book spans the period from 1740 to 1770-very much the city of Dr. Johnson, who published his great Dictionary in 1755. It starts when the gin craze was gaining ground and ends just before America ceased being a colony. In its enthralling review of an exhilarating era, Dr. Johnson's London brilliantly records the strangeness and individuality of the past--and continually reminds us of parallels with the present day.
362 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
62 people are currently reading
2220 people want to read
About the author
Liza Picard
8 books113 followersLiza Picard was born in 1927. She read law at the London School of Economics and qualified as a barrister, but did not practise. She spent many years working in the office of the Solicitor of the Inland Revenue and lived in Gray’s Inn and Hackney, before retiring to live in Oxford.
Her legal training encouraged her to seek original evidence, rather than rely on other peoples' research. This she says ‘is always to be recommended. It’s hard work but can be fascinating.’ Restoration London, the result of many years' interest and research into London life, was her first book.
Her legal training encouraged her to seek original evidence, rather than rely on other peoples' research. This she says ‘is always to be recommended. It’s hard work but can be fascinating.’ Restoration London, the result of many years' interest and research into London life, was her first book.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
November 8, 2019
If you're one of those people who reads old novels not for the plot, but for the bizarre details that can be extracted about daily life, then Liza Picard's books are a goldmine, not to mention a huge timesaver. There is nothing in here about eighteenth-century politics or court machinations – just a wealth of detail about how ordinary people in Georgian London dressed, how often they washed, where they went to get false teeth made, how often they ate turtle, what they did to get rid of bedbugs, and how they got around town.
I am happy to learn, for instance, that some people dined at 3pm, though the fashionable hour was 5; and that if you heard a shout of ‘By your leave, sir!’ while walking the streets, you should rapidly get out of the way so as not to be run over by the ‘chairmen’ carrying a sedan chair. Foreign visitors learned this lesson quickly.
It's interesting to find that pregnant women could ‘plead their belly’ in capital cases to avoid death, and that consequently most gaols had one or two ‘child-getters’ who could ‘qualify the ladies for that expedient’. (‘There's a career opportunity for a young man,’ as Picard comments.) And though I'd read plenty about Bedlam before – where you could go and chuckle over the antics of the mentally ill – I had not known that its layout was based on the Tuileries in Paris. Louis XIV was, apparently, so incensed by this that he ordered a model of the palace at St James's to be built ‘for offices of a Cloacinean nature’.
Do-it-yourself manuals were alive and well in the eighteenth century. For anyone who wondered how all the correspondents in these epistolary novels managed it, you could buy a useful guide called The Complete Letter-Writer, which gave you form letters for every conceivable occasion, including for the girl facing unwanted advances from a gentleman suitor: ‘I am sorry to say that my disapprobation of your address is insuperable.’ A handy formula; if Clarissa Harlowe had thought of it, Samuel Richardson might have saved a couple of pints of ink.
Really, every page of this book has some new nugget on it, and Picard sensibly confines herself to presenting them in as systematic and uncensorious a fashion as possible, though with a wit and intelligence which stops it from feeling like a mere laundry-list of factoids. If a man is tired of this, he is tired of life.
I am happy to learn, for instance, that some people dined at 3pm, though the fashionable hour was 5; and that if you heard a shout of ‘By your leave, sir!’ while walking the streets, you should rapidly get out of the way so as not to be run over by the ‘chairmen’ carrying a sedan chair. Foreign visitors learned this lesson quickly.
It's interesting to find that pregnant women could ‘plead their belly’ in capital cases to avoid death, and that consequently most gaols had one or two ‘child-getters’ who could ‘qualify the ladies for that expedient’. (‘There's a career opportunity for a young man,’ as Picard comments.) And though I'd read plenty about Bedlam before – where you could go and chuckle over the antics of the mentally ill – I had not known that its layout was based on the Tuileries in Paris. Louis XIV was, apparently, so incensed by this that he ordered a model of the palace at St James's to be built ‘for offices of a Cloacinean nature’.
Do-it-yourself manuals were alive and well in the eighteenth century. For anyone who wondered how all the correspondents in these epistolary novels managed it, you could buy a useful guide called The Complete Letter-Writer, which gave you form letters for every conceivable occasion, including for the girl facing unwanted advances from a gentleman suitor: ‘I am sorry to say that my disapprobation of your address is insuperable.’ A handy formula; if Clarissa Harlowe had thought of it, Samuel Richardson might have saved a couple of pints of ink.
Really, every page of this book has some new nugget on it, and Picard sensibly confines herself to presenting them in as systematic and uncensorious a fashion as possible, though with a wit and intelligence which stops it from feeling like a mere laundry-list of factoids. If a man is tired of this, he is tired of life.
June 21, 2010
Not only was Liza Picard's book Dr. Johnson's London informative, but it was easy to read with short sections covering life in England in the eighteenth century. If there was any aspect of this life left out, I have no clue what it might have been.
If the past looks attractive, the people who lived it had to fight disease without knowledge, vermin without adequate means of containing them and dirt both in their houses and on themselves. Bathing was a relative rare thing and personal hygiene was hit and miss at best.
Food was often ill prepared and refrigeration slight. One recommendation was "ass's milk is more digestible than cow's milk (and possibly less tubercular."
Wine was highly regarded as was chocolate. Tea rated over coffee and is most popular with the English today. Carrots were to be avoided, but bread, potatoes and parsnips were encouraged.
As it still is, the wealthy had access to the best amenities and medical care of the day, although that medical care was frightening.
Picard's book covers the experiences of the wealthy and the poor; the working man and the man of leisure in all aspects of their lives from professions to the "common" laborer.
For those of us who yearn for a simpler time, we would be wise to want this to be with today's advances in medicine and comfort of living.
It wouldn't do to walk down a city street and be hit with a bucket of slops from an upper floor of a building or to faint dead away at a party because our stays were too tight.
If the past looks attractive, the people who lived it had to fight disease without knowledge, vermin without adequate means of containing them and dirt both in their houses and on themselves. Bathing was a relative rare thing and personal hygiene was hit and miss at best.
Food was often ill prepared and refrigeration slight. One recommendation was "ass's milk is more digestible than cow's milk (and possibly less tubercular."
Wine was highly regarded as was chocolate. Tea rated over coffee and is most popular with the English today. Carrots were to be avoided, but bread, potatoes and parsnips were encouraged.
As it still is, the wealthy had access to the best amenities and medical care of the day, although that medical care was frightening.
Picard's book covers the experiences of the wealthy and the poor; the working man and the man of leisure in all aspects of their lives from professions to the "common" laborer.
For those of us who yearn for a simpler time, we would be wise to want this to be with today's advances in medicine and comfort of living.
It wouldn't do to walk down a city street and be hit with a bucket of slops from an upper floor of a building or to faint dead away at a party because our stays were too tight.
October 21, 2019
An interesting and well-researched reference on everyday life in London in the mid 18th century, particularly for the poor and middle classes, this book covers everything from housing to medicine to jobs and labor relations to entertainment. It’s minutely organized and indexed, making it very easy to refer back to a particular section; individual sections, however, are quite short, no surprise when the text comes in at under 300 pages for a broad variety of material. I found a number of surprises about the 18th century: at the same time, water was being piped into Londoners’ homes through pipes made of elm buried under the streets (wooden pipes? And we think of water utilities as being a much later development), and convicted criminals might be put in the pillory or whipped through the streets (which sounds downright medieval). This is not a narrative – Samuel Johnson, of Dictionary of the English Language fame, provides a time frame but is only occasionally mentioned – but it should be both useful and accessible to those interested in learning more about the period.
April 15, 2011
Well, nix on the time machine I've been building in the garden shed! Here's to the Bad Old Times - long may they remind me how to appreciate the present!
Enjoyed this book. The author divided up the information well, which helped to keep it from getting dry. And she let her sense of humor come through, which was great. My conclusion? Life was unbearably smelly (no deoderant, few baths, no knickers, scary or nonexistent sewers) and incredibly loud (hawkers yelling in the streets, horses hooves on cobblestones, carriage wheels, etc.) - not to mention that there was no real police force - oh, and what about all the lead and mercury and laudanum and poisonous stuff people were tossing down their throats every chance they got?
Wow. It's a crazy life. I enjoyed getting a glimpse of it and being able to put the book down. Anyone who loves history will find gems in this one. I recommend it.
Enjoyed this book. The author divided up the information well, which helped to keep it from getting dry. And she let her sense of humor come through, which was great. My conclusion? Life was unbearably smelly (no deoderant, few baths, no knickers, scary or nonexistent sewers) and incredibly loud (hawkers yelling in the streets, horses hooves on cobblestones, carriage wheels, etc.) - not to mention that there was no real police force - oh, and what about all the lead and mercury and laudanum and poisonous stuff people were tossing down their throats every chance they got?
Wow. It's a crazy life. I enjoyed getting a glimpse of it and being able to put the book down. Anyone who loves history will find gems in this one. I recommend it.
December 2, 2016
Another re-read by this author, I have to admit that I own all of her books because I was continuously borrowing them from the library, so I figured they were a good purchase. On a side note, I found out she has another book being released next year *goes off to snoopy dance*. I don't know why I enjoy her history books so much, there is just something about how she puts the information out there that keeps my interest. This was the book that got me hooked on her, we had a copy come into the bookstore I was working at and since we were allowed to borrow the new releases to read I snapped this one up as soon as it came out of the box. I wasn't disappointed or bored by it and it started a love affair with her books. The books are getting older and are getting past where most researchers will use them but they are some I will always keep and read.
October 27, 2009
After just touring Dr. Johnson's house in London, this book could not have been read at a better time. Dr. Johnson published his great dictionary in 1755 and this book spans the time period between 1740 thru 1770. Many interesting details..The British Library was started by a lottery, Wilbur Wilberforce (who worked to abolish slavery) also worked to abolish the lottery and on and on. Details about freak shows, prostitues and how both rich and poor lived, drank and worked in London town. The book begins with the gin craze and ends just before Britian loses control of America. Great read.
August 27, 2018
Nice book on London during the time of Dr Samuel Johnson.
I learned many interesting things, but am unsure I will ever use the knowledge I have gained on the correct way to kill a pig!
A fun read.
Highly recommended.
I learned many interesting things, but am unsure I will ever use the knowledge I have gained on the correct way to kill a pig!
A fun read.
Highly recommended.
June 17, 2021
This fact-packed exploration of life in London between 1740 and 1770 is entertaining and informative. By necessity it lacks an overarching narrative, but Picard's weaving-together of her wealth of details is largely coherent and only occasionally scrappy. Similarly, her personal comments on those details are sometimes a little tiresome, but never so much as to swamp the (considerable) interest of the information itself—I could have done without them, but maybe that's just me. Although some of it only skims the surface (spoken English) and some gives us a little more than might be strictly necessary (stays), on the whole the amount of information provided - on crime and dentistry, sewers and wigs, occupations and freakshows, brothels and wallpaper - is just about right. Instead of trying to write an artificial conclusion, the Appendix - in the form of a list of prices - provides a convenient and original summary of a fascinating topic.
March 2, 2011
The only reason this book took me so long to finish is that I read it aloud to my husband at bedtime. Picard creates a fascinating account of life in 18th century London, and the best part is definitely the largest, first section that deals with the poorest element. The descriptions are very visual, easy to read, and fascinating. Picard also writes with a good sense of humor, making for some laugh out loud moments. And her research is impeccable, working with original sources. Highly recommended.
November 3, 2016
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 15, 2018
A social history of London in the C18th which works hard to give all strata of London;s inhabitants equal coverage. London at the time was undergoing rapid change. The development of the West End was changing the geography of the city, and it was clear that there was an increasing, affluent middle class who were driving new patterns of consumption. Life further down the scale was, it is clear, hard, if perhaps not quite as brutish and short as it had been in earlier generations. The author has clearly worked her way through an enormous range of sources, and the detail is rich and vivid. Sections on the emergence of dentistry, the gin craze, and the secret language of fans stand out.
At times the level of detail is a little hard to digest (a bit like the adulterated London bread of the times), but the author writes with ease, and with enviable wit. She is not a professional historian, for better and for worse, and so does not choose to speculate on how Londoners felt about their new found modernity (did they notice it at all)? The developments of London was clearly leading to something new in urbanism, how did this sit with a people who often give the impression of not being happy in anything other than a rural thatched cottage? This is not a book to go in for such futile speculation. Probably deserves 3 and a half stars.
At times the level of detail is a little hard to digest (a bit like the adulterated London bread of the times), but the author writes with ease, and with enviable wit. She is not a professional historian, for better and for worse, and so does not choose to speculate on how Londoners felt about their new found modernity (did they notice it at all)? The developments of London was clearly leading to something new in urbanism, how did this sit with a people who often give the impression of not being happy in anything other than a rural thatched cottage? This is not a book to go in for such futile speculation. Probably deserves 3 and a half stars.
December 8, 2020
A great overview whilst also giving interesting detail. I always love it when a book manages to be both a good introduction and offers enough funny facts to entertain those who already know a bit more.
May 2, 2021
Most enjoyable read
February 13, 2013
London as Dr. Johnson knew it, as depicted in various anecdotes and historical snippets. The book is divided into three sections, describing the lives of the poor, the "middling sort," and the upper classes (though Picard does a lot of talking about Lord This and Lady That in the "middling sort" segment). A very handy book for the writer of historical fiction, since it addresses nearly every aspect of London life at the time.
June 22, 2017
Fascinating book. Not as good as her Restoration London; in part, because this book covers a much longer time period. It is hard to tell how life in London changed within that this period. Restoration London had a more intimate feel and I like that it closely followed Pepys' diary. This book quotes Dr. Johnson but not in as close a way. However, this is still an enjoyable and enlightening read.
March 2, 2008
This could have been more detailed but I'm a whore for anything Victorian and Dr. Johnson's London is readable and filled with lots of great facts for anyone who's interested in the Victorian era.
July 23, 2007
Simply fascinating. Essential reading for anyone interested in the social history of London. It's amazing how little the city has changed.
April 16, 2023
Pickard disarmingly begins her preface by saying, "First of all, I am not a properly trained historian. I am a lawyer by trade, and an inquisitive practical woman by character." Those are perfect qualifications for this type of book.
Pickard shows what life was like in London from 1740 to 1770. She seems to have read everything from that period. She mines business records and newspapers and diaries and court records and probate documents and earlier scholars and novels, poems and plays of the time and much more.
The book is organized into chapters on practical topics like "Traffic", "Slaves, Servants and Domestic Help", "Fashion and Beauty" and "Water". Each broad chapter is broken into short sections. For example, the chapter on "interiors and Gardens" has subsections including "wallpaper", "beds", "the furniture trade", "garden planning" and "tables and desk".
This is a deeply practical book. Pickard wants to show us exactly what London was like. She is generous with contemporary quotations.
The book is filled with interesting stuff:
An average day's travel in the fastest coach was 50 to 60 miles.
Homes in London had a public water supply, but water was only delivered twice a week. It was stored in a tank on the property.
The leading French dentist in London recommended cleaning your teeth with your urine.
50% to 60% of London-born children died before their tenth birthday.
Red headed women were not believed to make good wet nurses.
In 1765 the theft of a plant or tree worth over 5 shillings was made a felony for which the penalty was death.
Picard clearly enjoys gathering and organizing this type of stuff. (She has written two similar volumes on Restoration and Victorian London). She is a lively and witty writer. Even her footnotes are enjoyable. She uses them to tell stories about finding the material and her personal connections to her topics. For example, she has a footnote on her experience, as a young girl, with petticoats.
This is an enjoyable and thorough description of an exciting city in an exciting time.
Pickard shows what life was like in London from 1740 to 1770. She seems to have read everything from that period. She mines business records and newspapers and diaries and court records and probate documents and earlier scholars and novels, poems and plays of the time and much more.
The book is organized into chapters on practical topics like "Traffic", "Slaves, Servants and Domestic Help", "Fashion and Beauty" and "Water". Each broad chapter is broken into short sections. For example, the chapter on "interiors and Gardens" has subsections including "wallpaper", "beds", "the furniture trade", "garden planning" and "tables and desk".
This is a deeply practical book. Pickard wants to show us exactly what London was like. She is generous with contemporary quotations.
The book is filled with interesting stuff:
An average day's travel in the fastest coach was 50 to 60 miles.
Homes in London had a public water supply, but water was only delivered twice a week. It was stored in a tank on the property.
The leading French dentist in London recommended cleaning your teeth with your urine.
50% to 60% of London-born children died before their tenth birthday.
Red headed women were not believed to make good wet nurses.
In 1765 the theft of a plant or tree worth over 5 shillings was made a felony for which the penalty was death.
Picard clearly enjoys gathering and organizing this type of stuff. (She has written two similar volumes on Restoration and Victorian London). She is a lively and witty writer. Even her footnotes are enjoyable. She uses them to tell stories about finding the material and her personal connections to her topics. For example, she has a footnote on her experience, as a young girl, with petticoats.
This is an enjoyable and thorough description of an exciting city in an exciting time.
August 19, 2019
A shallow but extremely broad look at all the various aspects of life in 1750-1770ish London. The book is divided into 3 sections on the poor, the middle classes and the richest (with the last section being very short relatively) and each chapter focuses on a particular aspect of life for them. She covers a lot of topics although obviously nothing at greater length than a couple of pages. Although there were obviously times I'd want more detail I never felt like I was being left on the hook and it'd be impossible to really cover everything in detail. The picture she paints is pretty miserable and it's a wonder anyone, even the richest, lived very long. The book is mostly based around primary sources, particularly from The Gentleman's Magazine, with her dry commentary livening things up and connecting. It works well. There are some genuinely funny stories repeated - my favourite was probably the story of "Mr Manpferdt", a supposed centaur advertised in a handbill.
The only criticisms I have are minor - every so often it feels a bit jarring to read some 18th century bigotry and not have push back from the author, although she does much of the time. As said before it's shallow by necessity but gives a good idea of the broad sweep.
As she's not a historian by trade and she's covering so many different topics which obviously nobody could be an expert in all of I wonder how much of the analysis and stuff is backed up by modern historiography but obviously it's not reasonable to expect 100% accuracy to modern research. Just something to keep in mind I guess
The only criticisms I have are minor - every so often it feels a bit jarring to read some 18th century bigotry and not have push back from the author, although she does much of the time. As said before it's shallow by necessity but gives a good idea of the broad sweep.
As she's not a historian by trade and she's covering so many different topics which obviously nobody could be an expert in all of I wonder how much of the analysis and stuff is backed up by modern historiography but obviously it's not reasonable to expect 100% accuracy to modern research. Just something to keep in mind I guess
June 15, 2019
This was an excellent read, informative and highly unusual, in that it portrays the lifestyle of the ordinary citizens.
Too many books about society in the 'long eighteenth century' are primarily about the upper class. Some of this is about the upper class - ie, an unintentionally hilarious piece of advice from Lord Chesterfield to his son; he suggests that he read on the lav, quoting the example of a man who got through the Latin poets that way, tearing of fa few pages to take into what they then called the 'necessary house' to read and then 'sending them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina... It is better than doing what you cannot help doing at these moments'.
The style is flowing and the humour an excellent addition. It is spiced with inttriguing anecdotes: some of these are funny, some intiruging or puzzling, some provide a fascinating insight into the mindset of a lont gone age, some are darkly comical and some are downright tragic.
It seems that Liza Picard was a retired barrister, not an historian by trade, and I hope she wrote history books.
Too many books about society in the 'long eighteenth century' are primarily about the upper class. Some of this is about the upper class - ie, an unintentionally hilarious piece of advice from Lord Chesterfield to his son; he suggests that he read on the lav, quoting the example of a man who got through the Latin poets that way, tearing of fa few pages to take into what they then called the 'necessary house' to read and then 'sending them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina... It is better than doing what you cannot help doing at these moments'.
The style is flowing and the humour an excellent addition. It is spiced with inttriguing anecdotes: some of these are funny, some intiruging or puzzling, some provide a fascinating insight into the mindset of a lont gone age, some are darkly comical and some are downright tragic.
It seems that Liza Picard was a retired barrister, not an historian by trade, and I hope she wrote history books.
November 28, 2022
Books like this make me wonder how humanity survived in the past - the dangers to one's life were truly unlimited, from poisonous medicine and food made life-threatening by cost-cutting production methods to a seemingly infinite array of health threats and illnesses and all the plain old dangers to one's safety when out and about in smoggy, disease-infested and crime-ridden London.
Liza Picard paints a vivid and fascinating picture of our capital, full of fascinating details and delicious tidbits. I love history and sometimes find myself romanticising whichever period I am obsessed with at that particular moment. Books by Liza Picard and Ruth Goodman are excellent reminders of the hardships the people of the past had to face every day, things that don't even cross my mind as I mindlessly enjoy all the advantages of this modern age.
"Dr Johnson's London" is an entertaining, breathtaking and delicious dive into the daily life of all sorts of Londoners between 1740 and 1770. Most recommended!
Liza Picard paints a vivid and fascinating picture of our capital, full of fascinating details and delicious tidbits. I love history and sometimes find myself romanticising whichever period I am obsessed with at that particular moment. Books by Liza Picard and Ruth Goodman are excellent reminders of the hardships the people of the past had to face every day, things that don't even cross my mind as I mindlessly enjoy all the advantages of this modern age.
"Dr Johnson's London" is an entertaining, breathtaking and delicious dive into the daily life of all sorts of Londoners between 1740 and 1770. Most recommended!
December 16, 2025
Fasanating
It's a long book to read, but I'm delighted that I did. Thanks to the writer Phil Streeter for giving me the book. The thing is, as I read each page, I was happy that I live in the London of 2025. So many things were surprising, and so many things were terrible. I wonder how anyone really survived.
I also wonder about the things that were killing people in plain sight, and it made me think, I wonder if in one hundred years people will look back to the current time and ask How come they did not know how bad that was for you. I wonder what is killing us that we dont know of. If you can stomach it, it's a great read.
It's a long book to read, but I'm delighted that I did. Thanks to the writer Phil Streeter for giving me the book. The thing is, as I read each page, I was happy that I live in the London of 2025. So many things were surprising, and so many things were terrible. I wonder how anyone really survived.
I also wonder about the things that were killing people in plain sight, and it made me think, I wonder if in one hundred years people will look back to the current time and ask How come they did not know how bad that was for you. I wonder what is killing us that we dont know of. If you can stomach it, it's a great read.
August 1, 2025
a very useful introduction to the world of the eighteenth century. i bought this book in a charity shop in holmfirth with cat - lovely. hopefully all this information about healthcare and gardens and entertainment and fashion will be useful for phd things!
sometimes the writing was a little difficult to follow - i'm going to blame the fact that we have end notes rather than footnotes - and there was lots of information being thrown at me at once! but it was a good beginning to my research, i suppose!
sometimes the writing was a little difficult to follow - i'm going to blame the fact that we have end notes rather than footnotes - and there was lots of information being thrown at me at once! but it was a good beginning to my research, i suppose!
October 23, 2017
Heerlijk boek. Sleept je mee on het dagelijkse leven in het Londen rond de helft van de 18de eeuw. Alle sociale klassen en alle aspecten, ook de meest triviale, komen aan bod. Daarenboven uitermate vlot en humoristisch geschreven, in korte fragmenten. Zet toch ook aan tot reflectie over (on)veranderbaarheid. En misschien tot het lezen van Boswell (Life of Johnson & en zijn eigen Londens dagboek): zeer aan te bevelen.
May 5, 2020
Interesting take on the Georgian period. Not sure if it was the kindle that made it a strange layout or it was strange in general. The slight let down was it was a sprinkle of information and not much detail. Some sections were only half a page on a double zoomed in kindle page. I understand though that more sources would have become available in the twenty years since publication as I found it heavily reliant on the same source (gentleman’s magazine) all in all an easy read but not much depth
March 4, 2018
This book offers a comprehensive look at life in London in the mid-eighteenth century. It was full of great details and amusing anecdotes. The author did a great job of compiling source information from all over the place. She also divided up the book into sections about poor people, the middle-class, and the wealthy. They all led very different lives! This book was informative and fun.
July 3, 2018
This is a really enjoyable collection of facts and observations about life in London in the eighteenth century. It answers a lot of the questions that have interested me as a reader curious about this period: what did people eat, what did they do for amusement, what did they earn, what was healthcare like, etc. Well researched and good fun.
December 15, 2019
A thoroughly enjoying romp through London during the Georgian era that will illuminates many things that probably wouldn't be published or is forgotten.
January 3, 2020
Insightful.
October 6, 2021
Informative and fun.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews