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thespiritoftheage 's review for:
The Covent Garden Ladies
by Hallie Rubenhold
As Rubenhold wrote in the introduction to this book, our idea of Georgian England is so embedded in Jane Austen's portrayal of the time that we as a society have perpetuated (as the successors of the Victorians, who willed it so) that we forget about the richness of the colourful, rowdy, cruel, and unchained of the eighteenth century. In this biography, the author brings back to life a section of society often relegated in historical accounts of the period, which in turn helps elucidate all of these aspects that coexisted with the primness and constriction of normative femininity and respectable society.
With the utmost respect and accurately researched facts and figures, Rubenhold tells us of the life, career, and legacy of several of the big names in early c18 Covent Garden sex work business, their biographies completed with detailed accounts of the practices involved in it, from the illicit procurement of sex workers to instruments for male sexual gratification. I have learnt SO much reading this book and I recommend it most heartily. Most importantly, for me, it has shaken up my own perceptions and understanding as a literary historian specialising in the c18, which were vague and decontextualised.
With the utmost respect and accurately researched facts and figures, Rubenhold tells us of the life, career, and legacy of several of the big names in early c18 Covent Garden sex work business, their biographies completed with detailed accounts of the practices involved in it, from the illicit procurement of sex workers to instruments for male sexual gratification. I have learnt SO much reading this book and I recommend it most heartily. Most importantly, for me, it has shaken up my own perceptions and understanding as a literary historian specialising in the c18, which were vague and decontextualised.