From rag-gatherers to royalty, from fish knives to Freemasons: everyday life in Victorian London

The everyday realities and practical details of daily life in Elizabethan London, which most history books ignore - a Sunday Times bestseller.

Like its popular and acclaimed predecessor Restoration London, this book is the result of the author's passionate interest in the practical details of the everyday life of our ancestors, so often ignored in more conventional history books. Based on every possible contemporary source - diaries, almanacs, newspapers, advice books, memoirs, government papers and reports - Liza Picard examines every aspect of life in London: the streets, houses and gardens; cooking, housework, laundry and shopping; clothes and jewellery, cosmetics and hairdressing; medicine, sex, hobbies, education and etiquette;...

Making use of every possible contemporary source diaries, memoirs, advice books, government papers, almanacs, even the Register of Patents Liza Picard presents a 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.

A fascinating exploration of the Middle Ages through the lives of Geoffrey Chaucer's pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales.