SHAPELY ANKLE PREFERR'D: A History of the Lonely Hearts Advertisement - Softcover

"Wonderfully enjoyable" (Craig Brown Mail on Sunday)

"Shapely Ankle Preferr'd is an absorbing and intelligent history of the pursuit of love" (Daisy Goodwin Sunday Times)

"Elegant, witty, wise and utterly delightful" (Christopher Hart Literary Review)

"Shapely Ankle Preferr'd is a perfect little history of the surprisingly long story of those who WLTM" (Melissa Katsoulis Sunday Telegraph)

"This thorough and thoroughly amusing book suggest that what lonely hearts have always needed is a thick skin, a willing heart and, above all, a GSOH" (Arifa Akbar Independent)

What do women look for in a man? And what do men look for in a woman? And how and why has this changed over the centuries?

Every week thousands of people advertise for love either in newspapers, magazines or online. But if you think this is a modern phenomenon, think again - the ads have been running for over three hundred years. From the first ad in 1695 from a young gentleman who 'would willingly Match himself to some Good Young Gentlewoman, that has a Fortune of £3000 or thereabouts' to the GSOH, WLTM and online dating of more recent years, each ad is a snapshot of its age. The result is a startling history of sex, marriage and society over three centuries - hilarious and heartbreaking by turn.