London's pleasures : from Restoration to Regency / David Kerr Cameron.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cameron, David Kerr.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Amusements--England--London--History--18th century.

Amusements--England--London--History--19th century.

Recreation--England--London--History--18th century.

Recreation--England--London--History--19th century.

Recreation.

History.

Amusements.

London (England)--Social life and customs--18th century.

London (England)--Social life and customs--19th century.

England--London.

Physical Description:

234 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Stroud : Sutton, 2001.

Summary:

The year 1660 witnessed not only the restoration of the monarchy but also the beginning of a new lusty and licentious age. Under the Merry Monarch, Charles II, London shrugged off Puritanism and launched itself into debauchery to enjoy two centuries of uninhibited pleasure. This richly evocative portrayal of the capital will take you on an unforgettable historical pleasure trip.

Gambling was endemic: men bet on trifles for the highest stakes, and fortunes and reputations were won and lost overnight. Sex was easily available and even members of the House of Commons had to be regularly hauled out of brothels to vote legislation through parliament. Pleasure gardens offered patrons a blood-soaked evening of cockfights, dogfights, bull and bear baiting and boxing matches. Taverns and coffee-houses were also popular: one coffee-house cum bordello in Drury Lane attracted the after theatre crowd with prizefights between bare-breasted women. Drink fuelled most activities and gin was the new sin. Lords fell under their lavishly laid tables each night and were carried to bed by servants who saw nothing odd in such conduct. The saying was that you could get drunk for only a penny and dead drunk for tuppence. Music-halls provided defiantly irreverent fun and laughter and playhouses were more flesh markets than theatres. Public hangings at Tyburn and executions at Tower Hill were also staged as public spectacles and could draw excited crowds of up to 100,000. London's Pleasures draws to a close as the Victorian era brought a return to piety: fairs were quashed, pleasure gardens closed and music-halls reinvented themselves for a wider audience.

Full of wonderful anecdotes and revelations and richly illustrated throughout, this is a thoroughly entertaining window on the past. Read this and you will certainly never think of London in the same way again.

Contents:

I Introduction: a Return to Merriment 1

II Moving in Fashionable Circles 16

III Life in the Fast Set 34

IV Gardens of Dalliance and Delight 45

V Citadels of Wit and Wisdom 62

VI The Palaces of Despair 82

VII The Good, the Bad and the Risque 93

VIII The Playhouse and the People 108

IX Raw in Tooth and Claw 126

X The Fun of the Hanging Fair 141

XI Wonders of All the Wide World 162

XII A Theatre in the Streets 184

XIII The Sport of Gallants 196

XIV A Return to Puritanism 222.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-230) and index.

ISBN:

0750924489

OCLC:

46511668