In Bed with the Georgians provides a fascinating insight into life under
the bedclothes in Georgian England, where the Madams and pimps were able
to thrive in the eighteenth century like never before. It looks at
high-class seraglios as well as the brothels, jelly-houses and bagnios
which flourished openly, especially in the area around Covent Garden. It
looks at courtesans from the highest echelons of society, the kept
women, the sex-workers in 'houses of pleasure', down through to the
street walkers and common whores. It shows the way that the sex scene
was portrayed in contemporary letters and press reports, and focuses on
royal scandals, aristocratic shenanigans and immoral behavior. The book
looks at the role of Grub Street, the growth of celebrity status, and
the way courtesans occupied a demimonde of great popularity, with their
enormous wealth and conspicuous spending. In particular it looks at the
way that caricaturists, such as Gillray, Rowlandson, Newton, and
Cruikshank, pilloried the rich and famous for their peccadilloes,
satirizing their wild excesses, and by so doing helped inform the
general public of what their 'social superiors' were getting up to.
This book is lavishly illustrated in color and contains a useful
glossary of many aspects of the world of the sex trade in London two and
a half centuries ago.
