Library to house 1787 and 1788 editions of Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, a directory of women including their addresses and prices
The modest little book must have sat so innocently on the shelf of some expensive library, possibly placed “between Debrett’s and a continental railway guide”, Richard Aspin muses.
Aspin, head of research and scholarship at the vast library of the Wellcome Collection, has just acquired the book from a London dealer for “a low five-figure sum”, and is adding it to the special bindings section of the central London museum. Anyone who opens the beautiful crimson and gold leather cover is in for a surprise.
Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies is a late 18th century guide to the pleasures of late Georgian London. The crosses and house numbers added to the margins in pencil suggest the book was really used, not just flicked through for vicarious pleasure in an armchair.
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Aspin, head of research and scholarship at the vast library of the Wellcome Collection, has just acquired the book from a London dealer for “a low five-figure sum”, and is adding it to the special bindings section of the central London museum. Anyone who opens the beautiful crimson and gold leather cover is in for a surprise.
Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies is a late 18th century guide to the pleasures of late Georgian London. The crosses and house numbers added to the margins in pencil suggest the book was really used, not just flicked through for vicarious pleasure in an armchair.
More
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