Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies: Sex in the City in Georgian Britain

by Hallie Rubenhold (Editor)

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"If you ever wondered what Jane Austen's Mr Darcy and his 'fellows' got up to on their numerous trips to London, here is the book they would certainly have carried around ... HARRIS'S LIST OF COVENT GARDEN LADIES was a bestseller of the Eighteenth Century, shifting 250,000 copoies in an age before mass consumerism. An annual 'guide book', and published at Christmas time, it detailed the names, attributes and 'specialities' of the capital's prostitutes. During its heyday (1759 -95) HARRIS'S show more LIST was the essential accessory for any serious gentleman of pleasure. Hallie Rubenhold has collected the funniest, rudest and most bizarre entries penned by Jack Harris, Pimp-General-of-all-England' into this mischievous little book." show less

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2 reviews
It's a curio. I would like to be able to read the original, but apparently very few exist. This short pamphlet style novel details the sanctum sanctorum of many a Convent-Garden Lady. Sex Workers who frequented the Soho area et cetera. What is interesting abou this book, is that websites have picked up where it has left off. I found the writing of Sam Derrick, who was the apparent literary stylist behind Harris's List to be intriguing in the sense that on the most part it described the services of each worker to the benefit of the worker, and thus culled perhaps unnecessarily clientele from knocking on their doors. Each Sex Worker is described as to her service and then her price is named.

The frequent mention of birch wood for spanking show more is amusing, and on particular description of a Sex Workers services towards the end is well worth the potter through the earlier pages. If the oldest 'business' in the world tickles your curiosity, I would say it is a fine petite edition to perhaps more extensive descriptions of working in the Sex Industry. As I said before, I sometimes am somewhat questionable about the validity of such edited curios simply because I fancy having a bit more premise behind what I am about to read especially if penned by numerous or dubious authors, I like a bit of foreword to lead me into the merit of the text rather then descriptive tattle before I nurture the neatly bound eccentric artefact - but this can only encourage one to dig a bit deeper into the history of our sexual anthropological selves. show less

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Common Knowledge

Canonical title
Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies: Sex in the City in Georgian Britain
Important places
London, England, UK; Covent Garden, London, England, UK
Related movies
The Harlot's Handbook (2007 | IMDb)
Disambiguation notice
Do not combine this work with "Covent Garden Ladies: Pimp General Jack and the Extraordinary Story of Harris's List" by Hallie Rubenhold.

Classifications

Genres
Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction, Reference
DDC/MDS
941History & geographyHistory of EuropeBritish Isles
LCC
HQ186 .L56 .H37Social sciencesThe family. Marriage, Women and SexualityThe Family. Marriage. WomenSexual lifeProstitution
BISAC

Statistics

Members
135
Popularity
241,013
Reviews
1
Rating
½ (3.27)
Languages
English
Media
Paper, Ebook
ISBNs
4
ASINs
2