Our edition is filled with paintings and pictures of evocative objects from coins to road maps, and pictorial endpapers show London as it appeared before the Great Fire. A lawyer by training with a self-confessed passion for 'primary evidence', Picard devoted years to examining household accounts, legal records, conduct books, reports from visitors and diplomats, contemporary newssheets, as well as the diaries of John Evelyn and, of course, Pepys. Watermen plied their trade along the River Thames between the Palace of Westminster and the City, and in the newly fashionable St James's Park, Londoners took the air by day and sought other illicit pleasures at night. King Charles II a lover of women and of good living was on the throne, and the streets were crowded with velvet-clad noblemen making their way to the reopened theatres. In Europe only Paris and Constantinople were larger. In 1660, London seethed with a population of 300,000. Frontispiece and 24 pages of colour and black & white plates.
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