In Bed with the Georgians

Oh Georgians. What a bawdy naughty bunch it turns out you were. Before the prudishness and censure of the Victorian age, the English were fun, in an adventurously promiscuous sort of way. In Bed with Georgians is all about that, the brothels, the whores, the pimps, the cheaters, the lovers, the seducers, the rapists, the polygamists (and all the hilarious euphemisms of the time for the aforementioned terms) populate the pages of a well researched and terrifically amusing book. With great humor and a sort of bemused affection for its lovely and distinctly unlovely subjects, Rendell navigates the era so well, it makes for a terrific tour of a bygone age. There are a lot of individual accounts and plenty of art from the time (although on Kindle the ARC version had most of it in the book altogether instead of accommodating its respective chapters) and it was just a lot of fun to read. From famous to infamous, some names recognizable today, most lost to history, but apparently not forgotten, because of their ludicrous and wild love lives these Georgians are definitely worth reading about if only to enlighten oneself to a sexual and social zeitgeist of a historical epoch. Very entertaining read. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

A very enjoyable History book, it was entertaining and written in a manor that was lively and didn't have a dry moment!

Goodness me. I think I need a lie down and a hefty dose of smelling salts after reading Mike Rendell's racy, ribald romp through the Georgian era's saucy - and often dark - underbelly. Phew.

In Bed With The Georgians is a thoroughly delicious compendium of succulent titbits and shocking revelations about our fruity forebears. The action - and boy, is there a lot of action - is, necessarily, centred around the pleasure pits of central London, specifically the fulcrum of Georgian London's burgeoning sex trade that was Covent Garden. As such, In Bed... is a something of a social history of London in microcosm, which only adds to its appeal. It's all a great deal of smutty fun, of course, but what I found particularly pleasing about Rendell's lively work was that unlike many other books on the subject, the true, often tragic facts are not shied away from. Rendell gives a voice to the women - and men - whom the sexual mores of the era worked against; the sad lot of women, for example, is laid devastatingly bare. The reader finds themselves far more shocked by the suffering meted out to wives, homosexuals and those who did not toe the double-standard riddled moralistic line than by the sexploits of Regency rakes and Covent Garden molls. A dark flipside indeed.

Both a dip-inable encylopaedia of sauce and a comprehensive history of what made our ancestors tick, In Bed With The Georgians takes us from the gutters of St Giles to the bedrooms of palaces on its sweeping journey through eighteenth century society - both high and low. If heaving bosoms, lecherous lords and dastardly deeds are your thing, you really do need to partake in this fizzing, accessible and thoroughly enjoyable romp - although I do recommend keeping the smelling salts to hand...  

My sincere thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

In Bed with the Georgians: Sex, Scandal, and Satire in the 18th Century by Mike Rendell is a free NeyGalley ebook that I read in late September.

A comprehensive reference book for our 21st century, Rendell impresses with lively tales of courtesans, courtiers, erotic writers and artists, scandals, and a Georgian urban dictionary with detail so keen that you can almost spot a heaving bosom between chapters.