She describes in detail such elements as gardens, parks, and other public spaces the nature of housework in Restoration times how mundane chores such as laundry and shopping were accomplished the primitive but earnest state of Restoration medicine and dentistry the achievements of seventeenth-century science and technology and more. Picard carefully mines primary-source documents and contemporary materials to assemble her account, including the well-known diary of Samuel Pepys and other records from the time. In the book, Picard 'attempts to provide not a history but a description of how people lived in London in the decade (1660-1670) following the restoration of the Stuarts,' noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer. The first of Picard's books is Restoration London: From Poverty to Pets, from Medicine to Magic, from Slang to Sex, from Wallpaper to Women's Rights. She has turned being a late starter and an unashamedly plodding researcher into virtues.' Though some readers may be horrified at the thought, 'Picard insists that, when it comes to interpreting material, women make the best social historians' in large part because of a greater involvement in social and domestic details.

John Cunningham, writing in the London Guardian, described Picard as 'a bit of a stately matron, but without any pretentiousness. An enthusiastic amateur historian, Picard has written a series of books that describe in detail the everyday life and social history of four significant periods in the history of London, from the Restoration to the Victorian era. For many years, she worked for Britain's Inland Revenue, the English equivalent of America's Internal Revenue Service. Born in 1927, Picard became an attorney at age twenty-one. Liza Picard is a retired lawyer who lives in England. Victorian London: The Life of a City, 1840-1870, St. Martin's Press ( New York, NY), 2001.Įlizabeth's London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London, St. Johnson's London: Coffee-houses and Climbing Boys, Medicine, Toothpaste and Gin, Poverty and Press-gangs, Freakshows and Female Education, St. Johnson's London: Life in London, 1740-1770, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 2000, published as Dr. Restoration London: From Poverty to Pets, from Medicine to Magic, from Slang to Sex, from Wallpaper to Women's Rights, St.

Restoration London by Liza Picard