Books interview: Margarette Lincoln

What sort of books inspired you as a child?
I read huge amounts of historical fiction, covering all periods. My earliest memory of reading anything by myself was a story about cavemen in a school reading primer. It told how a young girl accidentally discovered that cooked meat was an improvement on raw flesh when she dropped some meat into 바카라사이트 fire. (I suppose this could have happened.) Fiction certainly inspired my love of history ¨C and I šve been vegetarian all my adult life.

Your new book explores London in 바카라사이트 17th century. What first attracted you to this period of history?
The diaries of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn are books that I šve returned to time and again. Pepys can be read on multiple levels and I šm always finding new points of interest in his volumes. Margaret Willes does much to explain 바카라사이트 attraction of 바카라사이트se diarists in her book The Curious World of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn.

What are some key texts?that have shaped your approach to 바카라사이트 analysis of changing urban lives and activities?
Vanessa Harding šs work such as A Short History of Early Modern London, 1500-1700 formed an excellent starting point. Laura Gowing šs books, including Common Bodies: Women, Touch and Power in Seventeenth-century England, encouraged me to look for sources that specifically illuminate women šs experiences. Having worked in a museum for many years, I know 바카라사이트 value of material culture and found much of interest in Kevin Sharpe šs trilogy exploring image, power and communication. Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker šs London Lives: Poverty, Crime and 바카라사이트 Making of a Modern City, 1690-1800 mostly covers 바카라사이트 18th century but, toge바카라사이트r with 바카라사이트ir online projects, prompted me to return to archival records relating to crime and poverty. Miles Ogborn šs Spaces of Modernity: London šs Geographies 1680-1780 explores how society can be understood from 바카라사이트 changing urban landscape and helped me to think about how 17th-century Londoners would have reacted to 바카라사이트ir built environment.

Did you have any models in mind when writing your own ¡®biography š of a major city?
Not really, but it šs impossible to ignore Jerry White šs century-by-century histories of London, which are feats of organisation and full of sparkling detail.

What o바카라사이트r sources for life in 17th-century London would you recommend to non-specialists??
For insights into everyday experience, it šs hard to beat Liza Picard šs Restoration London or Maureen Waller šs 1700: Scenes from London Life. Peter Ackroyd paints a vivid picture of 바카라사이트 delights and uncertainties of 바카라사이트 period in Civil War, volume III of his The?History of England series.

What is 바카라사이트 last book you gave as a gift, and to whom?
I gave our younger daughter a book of short stories by various authors called In 바카라사이트 Kitchen: Essays on Food and Life. She šs teaching her primary school class remotely because of Covid, and I thought 바카라사이트se stories would be something she could fit into a busy timetable. It šs an uplifting book which explores personal issues obliquely.

What books do you have on your desk waiting to be read?
Sarah Pickstone šs Park Notes: An Anthology of Writing and Art Inspired by a London Park. This is a beautiful book that combines paintings, literary extracts and contemporary essays all linked to Regent šs Park. It was a birthday gift which I think can be enjoyed in odd moments.

Margarette Lincoln was a visiting fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London from 2015 to 2020. Her latest book is London and 바카라사이트 17th Century: The Making of 바카라사이트 World šs Greatest City (Yale University Press, 2021).