The Time Traveler's Guide to Restoration Britain

by Ian Mortimer

Overview

Imagine you could see the smiles of the people mentioned in Samuel Pepys’s diary, hear the shouts of market traders, and touch their wares. How would you find your way around? Where would you stay? What would you wear? Where might you be suspected of witchcraft? Where would you be welcome? This is an up-close-and-personal look at Britain between the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 and the end of the century. The last witch is sentenced to death just two years before Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica, the bedrock of modern science, is published. Religion still has a severe grip on society and yet some—including the king—flout every moral convention they can find. There are great fires in London and Edinburgh; the plague disappears; a global trading empire develops.Over these four dynamic decades, the last vestiges of medievalism are swept away and replaced by a tremendous cultural flowering. Why are half the people you meet under the age of twenty-one? What is considered rude? And why is dueling so popular? Mortimer delves into the nuances of daily life to paint a vibrant and detailed picture of society at the dawn of the modern world as only he can.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681774008
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	04/11/2017
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	480
File size:	50 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Dr. Ian Mortimer has been described by the London Times as "the most remarkable medieval historian of our time." He is the author of The Time Traveler's Guide to Restoration Britain and Outcasts of Time, both available from Pegasus Books. He was awarded the Alexander Prize by the Royal Historical Society and is a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the Society of Antiquaries. Please visit his website at www.ianmortimer.com. He lives in England.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

1 London 9

2 Beyond London 31

3 The People 55

4 Character 93

5 Basic Essentials 148

6 What to Wear 184

7 Traveling 210

8 Where to Stay 237

9 What to Eat, Drink and Smoke 258

10 Health and Hygiene 289

11 Law and Disorder 321

12 Entertainment 346

Envoi 403

Abbreviations used in the Notes 409

Notes 413

Illustrations 441

Index 443

Editorial Reviews

Displaying an impressive range and depth of knowledge as well as a writerly instinct for dramatic presentation, Mortimer continues his you-are-there approach to English history. Mortimer deeply immerses the reader in this world, imparting an amazing first-hand feel for what living in the era was like. This is a sure bet for history lovers and readers with a penchant for unusual travelogues.

Booklist

Mortimer has magicked us back to a historical period starting approximately 350 years ago. History comes in many shapes and forms, moved and crafted by the availability of knowledge, by ideology, and shifting modes of inquiry, by angles of approach, by a desire for distance or intimacy. Mortimer is of the latter camp; not the first in the history of history, but a peerless purveyor of its ilk.

Christian Science Monitor

The endlessly inventive Ian Mortimer is the most remarkable medieval historian of our time.

The Times (London)

Displaying an impressive range and depth of knowledge as well as a writerly instinct for dramatic presentation, Mortimer continues his you-are-there approach to English history. Mortimer deeply immerses the reader in this world, imparting an amazing first-hand feel for what living in the era was like. This is a sure bet for history lovers and readers with a penchant for unusual travelogues.

Booklist

"Social historian Mortimer is on to a good thing. His previous, similarly structured books, The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England and The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England, charmed readers, and this latest will do the same." —Kirkus Starred Review

From the Publisher

04/01/2017
Historian and novelist Mortimer follows up his bestselling Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England and Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England with a tour of Restoration Britain that encompasses the reigns of Charles II, James II, and William III. The author maintains that "the past is best viewed up close and personally," immersing readers in a 17th-century world they will come to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel through the page. Mortimer begins the tour in London with the Great Fire of 1666 and moves beyond the city to focus on the people, attire, foods, and character of medieval Britain. He draws upon well-known diarists, such as Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, while incorporating accounts by more obscure figures, such as Joseph Pitts of Exeter, a "fourteen-year-old boy who was captured in the English Channel by Barbary pirates in 1678 and sold in the slave markets of Algiers." Reminiscent of cultural historian Johan Huizinga's works, this narrative employs day-to-day experiences to capture the " spirit of the age," demonstrating the growth of modernity in Britain in the 17th century. VERDICT An accessible book, entertaining and learned, for professional historians and general readers alike.—Mark Spencer, Brock Univ., St. Catharines, Ont.

Library Journal

★ 2017-02-06
The latest guidebook to England's past from the renowned historian.Social historian Mortimer (Human Race: Ten Centuries of Change on Earth, 2015, etc.) is on to a good thing. His previous, similarly structured books, The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England (2009) and The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England (2013), charmed readers, and this latest will do the same. As usual, great men and events make only a fleeting appearance because the author is more concerned with everyday lives: in this case, the lives of Britons of all classes between 1660 and 1700. London aside, demographics were dismal. Britain's population rose steadily from the 1400s until the present day, except during the Restoration, when it declined. Europe was passing through the Little Ice Age; crops often failed, and food prices rose. Britain endured its last famine in the 1690s. All historians stress that their era brought revolutionary changes, and Mortimer is no exception. England executed its last witch in 1685, and Isaac Newton's Principia, the book marking the dawn of the scientific age, appeared in 1687. Innovations of the time included insurance, journalism, statistics, and modern (as opposed to merchant) banking. Personal checks also made their first appearance. Aware that historical dietary and hygienic habits retain a special fascination, Mortimer does not disappoint. The healthiest food remained meat. Privies were a low priority; a chronic complaint from great houses and even royal palaces was people "leaving their excrements in every corner, in chimneys, studies, coal houses, cellars." In the century since the author's Elizabethan Guide, London's population had quadrupled to over 400,000, but there were still no sewers or running water. Garbage removal remained in the hands of private entrepreneurs, although a heavy rain worked better. Readers will finish this third in a delightful series of bottom-up histories hoping Mortimer has his sights set on Georgian England.

Kirkus Reviews