Product Description

Making use of every possible contemporary source - diaries, memoirs, advice books, government papers, almanacs, even the Register of Patents - Liza Picard presents an enthralling 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. 'There is almost no aspect of life in Restoration London that is not meticulously described in these 300-odd pages' Jan Morris, Independent 'This is a joy of a book. Its style is both simple and evocative...And it radiates throughout that quality so essential in a good historian: infinite curiosity' Roy Porter, Observer 'A pot pourri of the ordinary and the extraordinary, the predictable and the astonishing' Literary Review

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32414 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 376 pages

About the Author
Liza Picard was born in 1927. She read law at the London School of Economics and qualified as a barrister, but did not practise. She worked for many years in the office of the Solicitor of the Inland Revenue and lived in Gray's Inn and Hackney, before retiring to live in Oxford. Restoration London, the result of many years' interest and research into London life, was her first book.

Customer Reviews

London from 1660-1670
I stumbled on Liza Picard's books quite by chance. After looking at the publishing date in some of the books it is apparent some of them have been around for several years. I am now recommending them to anyone and everyone and I am so glad I stumbled across the first one I read on a rainy afternoon, lonely and far away from home. I have now read them all.

As soon as you start to read the book it becomes apparent that the author is passionate about her subject and wants the reader to enjoy the reading experience as much as she has in the writing of it. Liza Picard presents an enthralling 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. To anyone who has not read the author's books perhaps these subjects seem boring and mundane, but they are written about with such knowledge and wit that they literally come to life in the readers imagination.

Liza Picard was born in 1927. She read law and qualified as a barrister but did not practice. Quite where she gleaned all this information from I am not sure. That it was a labour of love is obvious to anyone who reads her books and I for one am grateful.

Excellent social history primer for the period
Using a comprehensive range of sources (including the diaries of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn and countless papers and observations from the time), Liza Picard aims to give an introduction to life in London between 1660 and 1670 (although she also uses sources from outside these time periods where the same illuminates the period).

The book is divided into the following sections: London; Houses; Interiors; Gardens, Parks and Open Spaces; Communications, Medicine and Dentistry; Clothes, Jewellery, Cosmetics, Hairdressing, Washing etc; Housework, Laundry and Shopping; Cooking, Meals, Food and Drink; Sex; Households; Education, Literacy and Speech; Hobbies, Excursions, Family Occasions and Etiquette; Divers Events and Acts in the Law; Money, Poverty and Class; Religion and Popular Beliefs and the World Picture. Picard's research is meticulous and she succeeds in providing a flavour for each section, while the comprehensive end notes provide an excellent starting point for further research for those so inclined.

Opinion is kept to a minimal, although Picard does offer suggestions where the raw data is inconclusive. The only point where this is difficult to agree with is in the Sex section where she uses the low child mortality rate to challenge the preconception of Restoration as being rife with rumpy pumpy, when it is equally possible that the statistics of the period were inaccurate due to under-reporting (a subject that she doesn't address).

This aside, Picard's novel is an excellent resource for anyone with a passing interest in Restoration social history or anyone requiring a primer for further research in the field.