Reviews - The Covent Garden Ladies: Pimp General Jack & The Extraordinary Story of Harris' List

190 reviews for:

The Covent Garden Ladies: Pimp General Jack & The Extraordinary Story of Harris' List

Hallie Rubenhold

3.65 AVERAGE

lucesandin's review against another edition

4.5

dark informative reflective medium-paced

lecterclarice's review

3.75

adventurous funny informative medium-paced

vickytx's review against another edition

3.0

challenging informative medium-paced

backpackfullofbooks's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

“Grub Street could be a graveyard for ambition, a pit of quicksand that swallowed authors whole.”
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The story of the lives, loves and sexual exploits of those featured in and associated with Harris’s list, an infamous list of prostitutes working in Covent Garden (London) during the Victorian era.

This book not only focuses on the women on the list but also the writers of it and the lives most notorious and successful women working in London as courtesans at this time in history.

This book was also the inspiration for the popular show Harlots.
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I found this book very interesting. The book tried to straddle pure history and a narrative ark, this an excellent way of making history engaging and accessible but the thread of the narrative was sometimes lost which made the writing a little incoherent at times.

It was incredibly interesting to see into this other world that was the underbelly of Victorian London and some of the characters mentioned are certainly memorable.

I think that this authors other book (the five) is excellent, and I regularly recommend it to people. Unfortunately this book, while enjoyable, wasn’t quite as good in my opinion.
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I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys complex social history, unusual historic individuals and the history of women and prostitution.