‘Clive Boursnell evokes the unique atmosphere of [Covent Garden], redolent of the smell of the vegetables and the colour of the fruit but mingled with it also a sense of the larger city as a place of money and trade. They make a heady mixture . . . The life has now changed. That is the unwritten law of London. Yet the buildings survive . . . the geography, if not the appearance, has been preserved.' Peter Ackroyd, of Old Covent Garden In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Forty years later he has returned and shot those many of those same sites as they are today. This book juxtaposes old and new photographs, showing how Covent Garden has changed – and the ways in which it has remained the same.

The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Peter Ackroyd's introduction and Clive Boursnell's marvellous photographs, taken over the course of numerous and extended visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s. The book includes a preface by Clive Boursnell and the words of some of the market people whom the photographer interviewed at the time.

"In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell shot thousands of colour and black and white photographs of the Covent Garden fruit, vegetable and flower markets, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of their site in the heart of London. The book contains almost three hundred of those images, portraits of the people working and using the markets, the flowers, fruit and vegetables, the streets and architecture of the Covent Garden area and its distinctive character, through every season. It also includes interviews with the people who knew the market best - the porters, the stallholders, the flower sellers."--BOOK JACKET.

"If you ever wondered what Jane Austen's Mr Darcy and his 'fellows' got up to on their numerous trips to London, here is the book they would certainly have carried around ... HARRIS'S LIST OF COVENT GARDEN LADIES was a bestseller of the Eighteenth Century, shifting 250,000 copoies in an age before mass consumerism. An annual 'guide book', and published at Christmas time, it detailed the names, attributes and 'specialities' of the capital's prostitutes. During its heyday (1759 -95) HARRIS'S LIST was the essential accessory for any serious gentleman of pleasure. Hallie Rubenhold has collected the funniest, rudest and most bizarre entries penned by Jack Harris, Pimp-General-of-all-England' into this mischievous little book."

Includes the recipes that are sorted according to when their ingredients are seasonally available to ensure that they taste as fresh and vibrant as possible. This book is presented in the practical series-style format of a spiral-bound hardback.