Making use of every possible contemporary source -- diaries, almanacs, newspapers, advice books, government papers, even the Register of Patents -- Liza Picard presents a picture of daily life in seventeenth-century London: the streets, houses and gardens; cooking, housework, laundry and shopping; clothes and jewelry, cosmetics and hairdressing; medicine, sex, education, hobbies and etiquette; law and crime, religion and popular beliefs.

We see a great and prosperous capital city -- in the known world only Paris and Constantinople were bigger -- checked in mid-decade by the horrors of plague and fire. We watch its elegant rebuilding. We enjoy the changing fashions of clothes and decor; the pleasures of gardening; the revival of theater; the craft of cabinet-making and the art of embroidery; the practice of music and dancing. We are shown the importance of astrology in medical care; the labor of housework and laundry; the hazards of sex; and the extremes of poverty and wealth. We hear the words Londoners used, and examine the education they received.