City Of Sin

Product Description

If Paris is the city of love then London is the city of lust. For over a thousand years Englands capital has been associated with desire avarice & the sins of the flesh. Richard of Devises a monk writing in 1180 warned that every quarter [of the city] abounds in great obscenities. As early as the second century AD London was notorious for its raucous festivities & disorderly houses & throughout the centuries the bawdy side of life has taken easy root & flourished. In the third book of her fascinating London trilogy award-winning popular historian Catharine Arnold turns her gaze to the citys relationship with vice through the ages. From the bath houses & brothels of Roman Londinium to the stews & Molly houses of the 17th & 18th centuries London has always traded in the currency of sex. Whether pornographic publishers on Fleet Street or fancy courtesans parading in Haymarket its streets have long been witness to colourful sexual behaviour. In her usual accessible & entertaining style Arnold takes us on a journey through the fleshpots of London from earliest times to present day. Here are buxom strumpets louche aristocrats popinjay politicians & Victorian flagellants -- all vying for their place in Londons league of licentiousness. From sexual exuberance to moral panic the city has seen the pendulum swing from Puritanism to hedonism & back again. With later chapters looking at Victorian London & the sexual underground of the 20th century & beyond this is a fascinating & vibrant chronicle of London at its most raw & ribald.