The Epicure's Almanack: Eating and Drinking in Regency London: The Original 1815 Guidebook - Hardcover

A fully annotated edition of The Epicure's Almanack, or Guide to Good Living, a listing of more than 650 eating establishments, taverns, hotels, inns etc, in and around London, investigated and engagingly described by Ralph Roylance (1782 - 1834). Working single-handedly and on foot, Roylance visited eateries ranging from City chop houses to humble tripe shops, as well as London's first Indian restaurant, ancient coaching inns, suburban tea gardens and dockyard taverns. He ended his book with an account of London's markets, an inventory of merchants selling everything from anchovy sauce to kitchen ranges, and an 'alimentary calendar'. Published in 1815, it was not updated or reprinted (and is consequently a very rare book). Indeed it was never really emulated until 1968, when the Good Food Guide to London was first issued.

Janet Ing Freeman is an Honorary Visiting Professor at University College London. Her previous books include (jointly with Arthur Freeman) John Payne Collier: Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century (Yale UP, 2004).