The Covent Garden Ladies

Although covent garden was the centre of sin filled with theatres taverns coffee houses and bath houses there was no designated red light district and women lived in virtually every.

The covent garden ladies. Each imprint generally listed more than 120 prostitutes at work in and around covent garden and the west end giving their address ages and chief attributes. This is their story. Historian hallie rubenhold author of a book investigating the handbook of the 18th century pimp found it revealed much about the situation of the courtesans of the georgian period. Printed annually between 1757 and 1795 this pocket sized guidebook acted as a directory to georgian london s prostitutes.

A a each issue featured 120 190 prostitutes who worked in or near covent gardens often giving erotic details and reviews on the. Harris s list of covent garden ladies published from 1757 to 1795 was an annual directory of prostitutes then working in georgian london a small pocketbook it was printed and published in covent garden and sold for two shillings and sixpence a contemporary report of 1791 estimates its circulation at about 8 000 copies annually. The covent garden ladies tells the story of samuel derrick jack harris and charlotte hayes whose complicated and colorful lives were brought together by the publication of harris list an infamous guidebook of prostitutes which detailed addresses physical characteristics and specialties the true history of the book is a tragicomedy motivated by poverty passionate. In 1757 samuel derrick a penniless and homeless poet created the harris s list of covent garden ladies a compendium of information about london s prostitutes.

The covent garden ladies plunges the reader down the dark alleys of eighteenth century london s underworld to tell the story of three colourful characters brought together in a salacious 1757 publication that detailed the names and specialities of the capital s sex workers.