Maureen Waller
1700
Scenes from London Life

Now in paperback!

"[A] radiant book … The resemblance between the two eras [1700 & the present] gives a piquancy to the text. … Waller has mined the archival record for fascinating details. … [T]his rigorous, informative, and entertaining text deserves a wide readership." — Publishers Weekly

In its excesses and extravagances, in its sharp distinctions between the very rich and the very poor, 1700 has its parallels to the cultural climate of today: cheek-by-jowl brutality and civility, hazards and promise. 1700: Scenes from London Life is more than a snapshot of a particular time and place, it is a detailed portrait of the complexity of urban civilization.

As the eighteenth century dawned, London was straddling the medievalism of its past and the booming industrialism and colonialism that awaited. London was not the image provided us by Masterpiece Theatre: open sewers and rivers of raw waste were as mundane as fire, theft, and violence. As people streamed into the capital from the provinces and the population exploded, the mortality rate and rampant disease kept apace. The damage from the Great Fire of 1666 was evident, even as the spires of Christopher Wren were rising from the ashes.

Maureen Waller has deftly woven accounts from newspapers and diaries with court records and popular literature to create an intimate biography of this cultural capital. She cites official accounts of wife swapping, infanticide, and edicts on the requisite materials for shrouds and embalming supplies. In addition, she includes the voices of the ordinary people. From the practical householder who contracted a cold and prepared for his burial by ordering the fabric for his "winding cloth" as a precaution, to the advice manuals on a child's appropriate diet (beer and sweet wines encouraged), Waller allows average citizens their fifteen minutes of fame.

Waller also investigates the seamier aspects of London, from the crime to the punishment. Eight times a year, the muffled church bells rang out to call people to a public hanging — an eagerly anticipated public holiday.The hustle and bustle created a combustion of creativity in the saloons (alcohol, not tea, was the most common beverage), clubs, and scientific societies. The theories of Locke, Swift, Halley, and Newton were only some of the great ideas generated in this urban petri dish.

Educated at the University College and Queen Mary College, London, Maureen Waller has worked at many publishing houses and is currently the senior fiction editor at Book Club Associates in London.