The Georgian Bawdyhouse (Shire Library) - Tapa blanda

'Entertaining, learned and instructive, this is a perfectly pitched little book that takes us deep into the seamy eighteenth-century world of the bawdyhouse, without ever losing either its lucidity or its levity.' --Dr Suzannah Lipscomb, author of 'The Visitor's Guide to Tudor England'

'Takes in every aspect of the period's commercial exploitation of female flesh ... excellent.' --The Dabbler

The business of sex was a significant aspect of urban culture in Georgian England, and a visible one. Despite the rise of the 'polite society' of Jane Austen's novels, England was also at the time rife with vice and debauchery: in the shadows of the fashionable public parks and gardens, in alleyways and taverns, even at church doors, there lurked a world of criminality and prostitution of which the bawdyhouse became one of the most potent symbols. This book explores what is was like to run, work in, and frequent these establishments, which ranged from filthy hovels and country inns to grand townhouse apartments, and draws from newspaper reports, criminal trials, political debate and bawdy pamphlets and prints to show both the frivolity and the harsh realities of the Georgian brothel.