Restoration London

This social history reconstructs everyday life in London from the return of Charles II in 1660 through the Great Plague, the Fire, and the rebuilding that followed, into the reign of William and Mary. Picard works from diaries, court records, bills, and advertisements to describe streets, houses, food, clothes, medicine, money, sex, and entertainment, and the trades that supplied them. Pepys and other witnesses appear as sources rather than as the subject. The book is organized by topics of material life rather than by high politics. It is a street-level account of the capital, not a biography of the king.

Bound in maroon cloth blocked in gilt and pink with a design by Neil Gower. Frontispiece and 24 pages of colour and black & white plates. Colour pictorial endpapers. Pale gold slipcase.