Paperback of the week

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A fascinating survey of life during the years 1740-1770, when Dr Johnson was compiling his great dictionary. It opens with a sedan-chair tour around George II's London and moves on to such diverse topics as male and female underwear, quack doctors, pickpockets, dentistry, hairstyles and highwaymen.

It's accessible and vivid, you can dip in and out at leisure and there are jewels on every page. There was not much chance of being tired of London when it was such a struggle to survive. Life expectancy was only 36 for both men and women and nearly 60 per cent of children died before their 10th birthday.

These were the days when "crack" meant a prostitute, a "fireship" was a prostitute with venereal disease, and "old hat" referred to a woman's private parts.