Review: Shakespeare’s London on 5 Groats a Day, by Richard Tames

As with Ian Mortimer’s excellent A Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England, this book is a modern day history that has an in-character primary source type of approach, putting the reader in the shoes of a visitor to the capital in the late 16^th century.

The book covers not just the city but also parts of its surrounding
area, in terms of reaching London when travelling there and taking day trips. There’s interesting detail on how social aspects such as the guilds function, and the defence of the city in times of woe (slightly odd but telling to read that longbows are superior to muskets but even the Queen’s guards swapped the former for the latter).

From shopping to staying at swanky inns (or less delightful taverns), what to eat (or not), the public spectacle of executions, and the biggest men, and women, in Elizabethan society, this is a good book for learning more about what it would be like to visit or live in London during that time. It’s also handy for world-builders thinking of how a society without our level of tech, and society with more old-fashioned views, might function.

The light-hearted style makes it entertaining and easy to read, and there are lots of little snippers of London lingo and lore that are concise but interesting.

It’s a slim book, which was to my liking and may be a pro or con depending on what you’re after.

Thaddeus