The Sexual History of London: From Roman Londinium to the Swinging City---Lust, Vice, and Desire Across the Ages

Front Cover
St. Martin's Publishing Group, Dec 6, 2011 - History - 384 pages

If Paris is the city of love, then London is the city of lust. From the bath houses of Roman Londinium to the sexual underground of the twentieth century and beyond, The Sexual History of London is an entertaining, vibrant chronicle of London and sex through the ages.

For more than a thousand years, England's capital has been associated with desire, avarice, and the sins of the flesh. Richard of Devises, a monk writing in 1180, warned that "every quarter abounds in great obscenities." As early as the second century AD, London was notorious for its raucous festivities and disorderly houses, and throughout the centuries the bawdy side of life has taken easy root and flourished.

In The Sexual History of London, award-winning popular historian Catharine Arnold turns her gaze to London's relationship with vice through the ages. London has always traded in the currency of sex. Whether pornographic publishers on Fleet Street, or courtesans parading in Haymarket, its streets have long been witness to colorful sexual behavior. In an 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, and Victorian flagellants—all vying for their place in London's league of licentiousness.

From sexual exuberance to moral panic, the city has seen the pendulum swing from Puritanism to hedonism and back again. With latter chapters looking at Victorian London and the sexual underground of the twentieth century and beyond, this is a fascinating and vibrant chronicle of London at its most raw and ribald.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Introduction
Lupanaria
Get thee to a Nunnery
The Burning and Buggery
The Suburbs of
The Playhouse is Their Place of Traffick
That Square of Venus
Perverse Pleasures and Unnatural Lusts
The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name
The Hour of Our Death
Swinging London
Plus ça Change
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Notes
Illustration Credits

West End Girls
Slaves of the London Pavement
Its a Sin
Index
Copyright

Other editions - View all

The Sexual History of London: From Roman Londinium to the Swinging City ...
Catharine Arnold
No preview available - 2011
The Sexual History of London: From Roman Londinium to the Swinging City ...
Catharine Arnold
No preview available - 2012

Common terms and phrases

Acton appeared arrested Ashbee Bankside bath houses Bawds and Lodgings beautiful became Belle de Jour Bosie Boulton boys brothels buggery Burford Carson celebrated century Charles clients clubs court courtesans Covent Garden death Despite disease dressed Duke Earl Edward Elizabeth England face famous Fanny Hill female flagellation girls Gropecunt Lane harlot Haymarket Hellfire Club Henry Henry Spencer Ashbee homosexual Ibid James’s John King Lady Lady Chatterley’s Lover Lane lesbian Linnane lived Londinium London Lord lover madam male married Mary Mayhew Messina mistress Moll Moll’s moral Mother murder night notorious obscene Orrible Orrible Synne Oscar Wilde Park Pearsall Pepys Piccadilly pimps pleasure police popular pornography prison prosecution prostitutes punters Queensberry Quennell Roberts Rochester Roman scandal sex trade sexual Soho Southwark Stead stews Street syphilis Theatre Thomas took vice Victorian Walter West End whipped whores wife Wilde Wilde’s William woman young women

About the author (2011)

Catharine Arnold read English at Girton College, Cambridge, and holds a further degree in psychology. A journalist, academic, and popular historian, her previous books include Necropolis: London and Its Dead and Bedlam: London and Its Mad.

Bibliographic information

TitleThe Sexual History of London: From Roman Londinium to the Swinging City---Lust, Vice, and Desire Across the Ages
AuthorCatharine Arnold
PublisherSt. Martin's Publishing Group, 2011
ISBN1429990066, 9781429990066
Length384 pages
Subjects ›  ›  › 

History / Europe / Great Britain / General
Social Science / Human Sexuality
Social Science / Sociology / Urban
  
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