Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies

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Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies (1757 – 1795) was a directory of prostitutes in Georgian London. It provided biographical details of the prostitutes, described their appearance and personality, and listed their sexual specialities. Priced at two shillings and sixpence, it sold over a quarter of a million copies over 38 years, a remarkable number for any book at that time.

Despite the name Harris, it was actually written by Samuel Derrick, an impoverished Irish poet, who worked from the list of available women carried by the notorious Jack Harris (aka John Harrison) who had christened himself the "Pimp General of All England". The success of the work helped to free Derrick from debtor's prison, although he was dismissed by James Boswell as a "little blackguard pimping dog". Derrick later went on to become the second Master of Ceremonies at Bath after the death of Beau Nash. Jack Harris was arrested and imprisoned in Newgate Prison in 1758. Harris gave Derrick permission to use his name. Derrick secretly continued to edit the List until his death, when he passed the proceeds of his final edition to his former mistress, the courtesan and brothel-keeper, Charlotte Hayes (aka Kelly or O'Kelly). The authors of the List after 1769 are unknown: the publisher's name H. Ranger represents John and James Roach and John Aitkin.^[1]

In 2005, historian Hallie Rubenhold wrote an accessible history of the directory and its author in her book The Covent Garden Ladies: Pimp General Jack and the Extraordinary Story of Harris' List, and later published a volume containing a selection of the directory's "funniest, rudest and most surreal entries."

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Rubenhold, Hallie (2005:a) The Covent Garden Ladies: Pimp General Jack and the extraordinary story of "Harris' List" . Stroud: Tempus ISBN 0752428500
• Rubenhold, Hallie (ed.) (2005:b) "Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies": sex in the city in Georgian Britain. Stroud: Tempus

[edit] External links

• Maev Kennedy, "Exposed: filthy poet pimp who wrote the Georgian gentleman's guide to prostitution", The Guardian, 11 April 2005retrieved 19 July 2008
• Sebastian Lander, "I really have read ... Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies", The Times (London), 2 January 2006retrieved 19 July 2008
• "As lewd as goats and monkeys", The Daily Telegraph, 19 June 2005
• Hallie Rubenhold, "The Story of The Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies", introduction to the BBC programme The Harlots Handbook, BBC on line, November 2007