Historian Hallie Rubenhold investigates the salacious publishing sensation, Harris's List - an infamous guide to London's prostitutes.

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The Story of The Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies
By Hallie Rubenhold

For the majority of Georgian London's inhabitants, life was not about tea parties and elegant balls, but rather about avoiding starvation and debtor's prison. In order to survive, ordinary men and women had to earn an existence by any means, even if this included the exploitation of themselves and others.

The Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies, was born in this climate of necessity. A guidebook to the capital's prostitutes, it was published annually between 1757 and 1795, and was believed to have sold a staggering 250,000 copies in the course of its 38-year print run. However, the List provided more than just a simple catalogue of names and addresses, but rather a witty account of London's ladies of the town.

Each edition contained information about the women who appeared in it, featuring assorted biographical details about their lives, appearances, personalities and of course, their sexual specialities. The List's titillating entries include stories of women such as Miss Kilpin, who offers her favours inside the privacy of hackney carriages, but who is in reality 'a married city lady, who takes this method of getting home deficiencies supplied abroad' and Mrs. Horton who, in addition to peddling her affections also, 'Keeps a shop and sells gloves, garters &c'

It's not only the content of the Harris's Lists that sheds a light on the lives and sexual peccadilloes of urban Georgians, as the story of its creation is equally illuminating. The printed version of The Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies first arrived on booksellers' stalls in 1757 as the brain child of an impoverished Irish poet, Samuel Derrick. Prior to this period it existed as a handwritten manuscript kept in the pocket of the self-proclaimed Pimp-General-of-All-England, Jack Harris (sometimes known as John Harrison). Harris, who worked as the head waiter at the Shakespear's Head Tavern in Covent Garden entered into an agreement which permitted Derrick to use his name on the cover of his publication.

Derrick, who later went on to become Master of the Ceremonies at Bath, was spared from debtor's prison by the success of his work. When he died in 1769, he bequeathed the proceeds of The Harris's List to his former mistress, Charlotte Hayes, who had by then become one of the wealthiest brothel keepers in London. The money that she earned through London's booming flesh trade ultimately bought her two country houses and a collection of residences in Mayfair and Piccadilly, proving the maxim, 'sex sells' to be a perennial one.

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