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Title: 1700: Scenes from London Life by Maureen Waller ISBN: 1-56858-216-1 Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows Pub. Date: 09 February, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: History was never more entertaining
Comment: This book is fantastic. It tells you stuff about everyday life in London at the turn of the 18th century that I spent hours and hours learning by reading old books in the Clayton genealogical library in Houston. If you working in this period, the book is invaluable. It is concise, yet covers the minutea of everyday life. Miss Manners of that day is quoted with instructions that if several eat from a large communal bowl, you should not dip your spoon in a second time without wiping it off; and to not fill your mouth with so much food, your cheeks swell like a pair of Scotch bagpipes. [Yes, they said Scotch, and not Scottish.] What is fun is that this era opened up much of modern day life and that turn of the century saw the introduction of the "toast," thick cream [eggnog], punch, coffee and tea. Coffee houses came into existence, and the varieties of specialty shops that could be accommodated as people began to make enough money to buy commodities they had previously bartered for or made themselves. Unlike in Dickens' time, the 18th century issued in a time of great prosperity in England.
Rating: 5
Summary: "1700" is superlative social history
Comment: Waller's vibrant social history is an entertaining introduction to life as it was lived by Londoners in the era of William & Mary. Divided into topical and thematic chapters covering the stages of family life (Marriage, Childbirth, Childhood, Death, etc.), the minutae of daily life (Fashion, Food and Drink, Amusements, etc.) and period brutalities (Religion and Superstition, Prostitution and Vice, Crime and Punishment, etc.), Waller's smoothly-written chronicle is a lively tour of a fascinating, dynamic and ghastly civilization. Although solidly based on primary resources, Waller wears her learning lightly and her book is a triumphant panorama of the epoch it surveys. Not to mention being a fine antidote to any nostalgia for the age of Defoe and Swift. It also serves as an excellent non-fiction companion to David Liss' period novel "A Conspiracy of Paper."
Rating: 3
Summary: Good, but not 5 stars
Comment: I enjoyed this book, but I don't think it deserves quite as much praise as it seems to have recieved here. The material itself is very interesting, but her attempts to make it read like a novel just don't work. She begins each chapter as if it were a novel but after the first paragraph it lapses back to plain old history. I also found that there were too may quotes using outdated language and archaic spelling that I found difficult. This book was written by the Brittish for the Brittish, who already understand how London is laid out and where the different areas are. You must also already know what the abriviations for their monitary system are and what they mean since she goes into great detail about how much things cost, but if you don't know what "5d" represents, you are lost.
Overall the book was interesting, her content was appropriate and explained in enough detail without being overdone, but it is not the best I have ever read.
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Title: English Society in the Eighteenth Century (Penguin Social History of Britain) by Roy Porter ISBN: 0140138196 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Dr. Johnson's London : Coffee-Houses and Climbing Boys, Medicine, Toothpaste and Gin, Poverty and Press-Gangs, Freakshows and Female Education by Liza Picard ISBN: 0312291531 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Pub. Date: 21 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Restoration London: Engaging Anecdotes and Tantalizing Trivia from the Most Magnificent and Renowned City of Europe by Liza Picard ISBN: 038073236X Publisher: Quill (HarperCollins) Pub. Date: 01 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Everyday Life in the 1800s: A Guide for Writers, Students & Historians (Writer's Guides to Everyday Life) by Marc McCutcheon ISBN: 1582970637 Publisher: Writer's Digest Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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Title: Daily Life in Johnson's London by Richard Schwartz ISBN: 0299094944 Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1984 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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