The Harlot's Handbook - Softcover

If you ever wondered what Jane Austen's Mr Darcy and his 'fellows' got up to on their numerous trips to London read this edition of the book they would have certainly carried around...Harris' "List of Covent Garden Ladies" was a bestseller of the eighteenth century, shifting 250,000 copies in an age before mass consumerism. An annual 'guide book', it detailed the names and 'specialities' of the capital's prostitutes. During its heyday (1757-95) Harris' "List" was the essential accessory for any serious gentleman of pleasure. Yet beyond its titillating passages lay a glimpse into the lives of those who lived and died by the List's profits during the Georgian era. Hallie Rubenhold has collected the funniest, ruddiest and most surreal entries penned by Jack Harris, "Pimp-General-of-All-England" into this hilarious book.

Hallie Rubenhold was born in Los Angeles to English parents, studied history at the University of Massachusetts and history and the history of art at the University of Leeds where she received her MA and MPhil in eighteenth-century British social history. She worked as the Assistant Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, London before deciding to teach history and write full-time. She is currently writing Lady Worsley's Whim: The Divorce that Scandalised Georgian England. She lives in Muswell Hill, London.