Elizabeth's London - Softcover

Picard, Liza

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0753817578 ISBN 13: 9780753817575

Publisher: Phoenix, 2004

Synopsis

'Reading this book is like taking a ride on a marvellously exhilarating time-machine, alive with colour, surprise and sheer merriment' Jan Morris

Elizabethan London reveals the practical details of everyday life so often ignored in conventional history books.

It begins with the River Thames, the lifeblood of Elizabethan London, before turning to the streets and the traffic in them. Liza Picard surveys building methods and shows us the interior decor of the rich and the not-so-rich, and what they were likely to be growing in their gardens. Then the Londoners of the time take the stage, in all their amazing finery. Plague, smallpox and other diseases afflicted them. But food and drink, sex and marriage and family life provided comfort. Cares could be forgotten in a playhouse or the bull-baiting of bear-baiting rings, or watching a good cockfight.

Liza Picard's wonderfully skilful and vivid evocation of the London of Elizabeth I enables us to share the delights, as well as the horrors, of the everyday lives of our sixteenth-century ancestors.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Praise for ELIZABETH'S LONDON:
"Wisely, she parcels out her findings in units that seldom come to more than one to three pages...there is an excellent index, a handy means of dealing with treasure that is piled high...You can open the book and start reading anywhere" --Richard Buell, Boston Globe
"Lively guide to Elizabethan England." -The Washington Post

Praise for DR. JOHNSON'S LONDON:
"Lively...[Picard] gives an excellent indication about what Londoners thought." --The Washington Times
"Quintessential...[Picard] does a marvelous job of unearthing material about London."--Buffalo News
"[Samuel] Johnson stated, 'When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.' Picard shows why."--Charleston Post & Courier

Praise for RESTORATION LONDON:
"Lively and informative, with a distinctly eccentric feel...entertaining."--Publishers Weekly
"[An] engaging survey."--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author:

Liza Picard was born in 1927. She is the bestselling author an acclaimed series of books on the history of London: Elizabeth's London, Restoration London, Dr Johnson's London and Victorian London. Her most recent book, Chaucer's People, explores the Middle Ages through the lives of the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales.

She read law at the London School of Economics and was called to the Bar by Gray's Inn, but did not practise. She worked for many years in the office of the Solicitor of the Inland Revenue before retiring to become a full-time author. She lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Phoenix
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0753817578
• ISBN 13: 9780753817575
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400