Promotional Information

To be reissued in brand new livery alongside Liza Picard's latest book, Elizabeth's London Elizabeth's London is a Sunday Times bestseller Paperback has already been reprinted three times Will appeal to the layman as much as the historian and describes one of the most exciting and memorable periods in London's history There are fascinating disquisitions on do-it-yourself decorating, on male and female underwear, on funerals, and on the language of fans...Dr Johnson's London is a Baedeker of the past...it is absorbing and revealing in equal measure' Peter Ackroyd, The Times

About the Author

Liza Picard was born in 1927. She read law at the London School of Economics and qualified as a barrister, but did not practise. She worked for many years in the office of the Solicitor of the Inland Revenue and lived in Gray's Inn and Hackney, before retiring to live in Oxford. Restoration London, the result of many years' interest and research into London life, was her first book.

Reviews

At last, a riveting history book with no wars, few dates and minimal references to the King ... Picard has an unerring eye for picking out the most vivid phrase, the most apt memory or pithiest description from the wealth of contemporary information that exists
*Sunday Express*

There are fascinating disquisitions on do-it-yourself decorating, on male and female underwear, on funerals, and on the language of fans ... Dr Johnson's London is a Baedeker of the past ... It is absorbing and revealing in equal measure
*The Times*

In this new survey of Johnson's London, which spans the years 1740 to 1770, Liza Picard reveals what it was that proved so compelling about the monstrous metropolis ... With her keen eye for human quirks and human weakness, Picard brings the age's tortuous splendours and profound murkiness vividly to life, and does so with great verve and originality
*Observer*

Picard's exploration of life in the mid-eighteenth century succeeds in being both accessible and vivid. Her curiosity and enthusiasm are infectious, and she has an instinct for what will interest the lay reader
*Daily Telegraph*

This book sweeps across the London of 1740 to 1770 like a flying magnifying glass. [Picard's] dry humour and eagle eye make her a superb guide. It opens with a sedan chair tour around George II's London and along the river. I can only say it is brilliant
*Camden New Journal*

This wonderful book drops us right in the noisy, dirty, dung-ridden heart of mid-eighteenth-century London ... Picard's street-level approach builds up a compelling, all-encompassing picture of how Londoners, from commoners to kings, lived and died
*Glasgow Herald*

Read Liza Picard's book, wrap yourself in the atmosphere of the past, and you'll emerge with a gulp of relief to be living now, not then
*Sunday Times*