Customer Reviews
Excellent - and a good read - By: buff, 15 Jan 2008 
I have enjoyed this book. It is valuable whether you are researching 18th century English history, of whether you just want to immerse yourself in the atmosphere & activities of the times. Focus is more on what normal men & women got up to rather than on the kings & queens & wars & so on (the kind of thing that is perhaps more usual for history books). But this is not just a history book. It is entertaining as well. It is written without aloofness or any hint of stuffiness, & has humour & wit to lighten the load. Academic, well researched & yet warm & full of humanity. What a combination!
Absorbing and fascinating - By: tybalt-quin, 14 Jun 2007 
This is a fascinating & well-researched book that gives you interesting snippets about how life was lived between 1740 & 1770. Particularly interesting is her use of first hand accounts of daily life in the time, told by foreign visitors, who must have viewed the customs as strangely as we do looking back.
My main criticism is that the subject matter is perhaps too broad, which means that Picard barely scratches the surface of some of the most interesting topics - transport, the lives of the wealthy, shopping etc - but her book is good enough to encourage the reader to conduct their own research into these areas.
London 1740-1770 - By: J. Chippindale, 06 Sep 2006 I stumbled on Liza Picard's books quite by chance. After looking at the publishing date in some of the books it is apparent some of them have been around for several years. I am now recommending them to anyone & everyone & I am so glad I stumbled across the first one I read on a rainy afternoon, lonely & far away from home. I have now read them alll.
As soon as you start to read the book it becomes apparent that the author is passionate about her subject & wants the reader to enjoy the reading experience as much as she has in the writing of it. Liza Picard presents an enthrallling picture of how life in London was reallly lived. The book is about the period from 1740 to 1770 when many great men walked the streets of London, among them Hogarth, Fielding & Dr Johnson. Names that are well known in history, but the author puts meat on the bones & brings these people to life for the enjoyment of the reader.
Liza Picard was born in 1927. She read law & qualified as a barrister but did not practice. Quite where she gleaned alll this information from I am not sure. That it was a labour of love is obvious to anyone who reads her books & I for one am grateful.
Excellent Introduction to a wonderful age of history - By: , 12 Jul 2005 Liza Picard has effectively captured the spirit of an age of contrasts - at once modern, sometimes dramaticallly so in matters of commerce & the media - & yet still medieval in areas like criminal justice. Well worth a read!
Engaging, but ultimately lightweight - By: Mr. Andrew Dennis, 20 May 2003 
I was looking forward to this book and, to some extent, enjoyed reading it. However, I've a few criticisms. Firstly, it seemed to be drawn from a relatively limited number of souces. Whilst books like this alll tend to lack true scholarly rigour, this one was reallly quite thinly researched. Secondly, & as a result no doubt, there was plenty of repetition in it. The same stories appeared several times to illustrate similar points. Finallly, the writing style was a little stilted at times.
Althogether a bit disappointing, although a tolerable read.
