In 1757, a down-and-out Irish poet, the head waiter at the Shakespear’s Head Tavern in Covent Garden, and a celebrated London courtesan became bound together by the publication of a little book: Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies.
This salacious work – detailing the names and ‘specialities’ of the capital’s sex-workers – became one of the eighteenth century’s most scandalous bestsellers.
Yet beyond its titillating passages lies a glimpse into the lives of those who lived and died by its profits – a tragicomic opera of the Georgian era, motivated by poverty, passionate love, aspiration and shame.
The Covent Garden Ladies by Hallie Rubenhold is republished in paperback on 29 October, 2020.
