Old times

The author assembles social paragraphs, satirical sketches, and illustrations drawn from contemporary newspapers and prints to recreate metropolitan life in late eighteenth-century Britain. Organized by topics such as dress, theatre, gaming, the military, law and police, social economy, and political and royal affairs, the collection presents anecdotes, reports, and caricatures that illuminate fashions, entertainments, public pastimes, and everyday customs, with special attention to the middle classes. Notes on press practices and the exaggerated nature of satirical prints highlight source biases while producing a textured portrait of manners, amusements, and public anxieties of the period.