What's in a location, part three.

In this third look at Covent Garden I talk about James Street and Long Acre. First of all, take a look at the map of Kitty's Covent Garden.

James street isn't marked on this map, but it is the road leading from the Northern side of Covent Garden to the what is marked on the map as Hart Street, which is what Long Acre was called in the mid 18th century.


Here's James Street today. It's pedestrianised and usually swarming with tourists. This was a very rainy, cold day. At the top on the right hand corner is Covent Garden Tube Station. Halfway down this street, back in the 18th century, was the house in which the Reverend of St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden lived. I've tried to find a picture of James Street from the 18th century, and even the 19th century, but have failed miserably. There are pictures of St. Jame's Street, but this is a different street, further west.

This is a modern drawing of the houses on the west side of James Street. You can see the houses built in the 18th century are marked in the left hand section, and here they are below. The Body Shop and Fossil are both 18th century. The Cambridge Satchel Company is 19th century, but it looks to be based on an earlier building. In general 18th century windows were longer than those in the 19th century.

Moving into Long Acre, then Hart Street. This is it now, looking in both directions.

Okay, so the building in this photo was built in 1938. Here it is below at that time. It has changed since then. The windows aren't the same. Mostly, buildings like this end up being gutted and the facade kept, while the main body of the building remains.

The sad thing is that this monstrosity of 1930s architecture was built in place of these old houses, which were built in Long Acre in 1690. As you can see, the windows are shorter and wider than the following two centuries. Remember than after the Great Fire of London, in 1666, most of the city was rebuilt in brick, hence the somewhat 'modern' look to terraces built in the 17th century. Gone were the wooden-framed houses of the old city.

In The Finish Kitty goes to a surgeon, who performs an autopsy on one of the murder victims. She would have visited a house very like one of those pictured here.

I did find this wonderful old photo of an Inn in Floral Court, which is just off James Street and Long Acre.

I'm guessing it was taken around the 1930s. I'm not sure if it's still there, but I will go and look and report back.

The other photo worth showing you of Long Acre is this one below.

Now, I'm not sure whereabouts on Long Acre this was, but I've a feeling it occupied the site which the Covent Garden tube station now sits on, which would mean that the facing us is James Street, looking all the way down to Covent Garden. Then again it could be the corner opposite, in which case this looks up to Seven Dials. 

It's a very interesting area, albeit today it's all shops and tourists.  I love the cobblestones in this picture and the old shop window on the left. It's a real shame there's so little left of it.

Part one in this look at Covent Garden is here

Part two is here

The Finish tells the story of an 18th century Covent Garden prostitute who wakes to find a dead man in her bed, and is forced to uncover the murderer for fear she will swing from the gallows.

www.angelaelliottbooks.com 

10 libertine and risqué novels you just have to read

If you are an avid reader, like I am, then you really need to check out these libertine and risqué novels. Strictly speaking, the libertine novel had its origins in France. Its heyday ended with the French Revolution. However, there are many brilliantly written novels from other parts of the world, each of which touch on the same subject matter. Here's my top ten selection, which should grace every avid readers shelves.

The 120 days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade

Where to begin?  He wrote this book in 37 days, whilst locked up in the Bastille in 1785 for sexual deviancy and blasphemy. His name is the reason we have the word 'sadist'. He wrote many other books, some just as scurrilous as this one. 120 days remains a work of supreme endeavour. You do not want to leave this off your shelf.
Read more

Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery by John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester

Sodom is an obscene closet drama published in 1684 and attributed to the randy old Earl of Rochester (played, quite wonderfully in the film Libertine, by Johnny Depp). In the play, the king is called Bolloxinian and the queen, Cuntigratia. Aside from the obvious, the play is actually also a satire on the court of Charles II and his toleration of the Catholic Church.

Read the play

Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland 

Even randy little James Boswell called this book 'a most licentious and inflaming book'.  Ever since its publication in 1749, it has been shrouded in mystery and controversy. It was written whilst he was in debtors prison. It is one of the most prosecuted and banned books of all time.
Read more

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

Moll Flanders was one of the first novels written almost as social commentary. It follows poor Moll through her career in crime and prostitution, and her eventual transportation to the colony of Virginia.
Read the book

The Story of O by Pauline Réage 

An absolute classic of the erotic genre. Precedes Fifty Shades, and is way better, by 57 years. A beautiful young French woman, her lover. A splendid mansion near Paris. An elite secret society. Sexual fantasies abound.
Read the book

Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence

DH Lawrence wrote, “I want men and women to be able to think about sex, fully, completely, honestly, and cleanly,”  in his introduction to Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The first edition was privately printed in Italy, and it wasn't available at all in the USA until 1959 - and yet it is undoubtably a classic.

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Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau

Mirbeau was a French journalist and playwright. The Torture Garden was published in 1899 at the height of the Dreyfus affair. The book sought to expose the corruption of colonialism and civilisation, wrapped up in deliciously tortuous S&M, all of which takes place in a beautiful Chinese garden. Not for the faint at heart.
Read the book

The Awakening by Kate Chopin 

Photo: Kate Chopin

First published in 1899, The Awakening was contentious, right from the start. It explored female sexual desire and feminism. Insofar as it is almost exactly the same story as Ibsen's The Doll's House, it suffered from having been written by a woman who had already scaled literary heights. The Chicago Times Herald said of it: "It was not necessary for a writer of so great refinement and poetic grace to enter the over-worked field of sex-fiction".
Read the book

The Well of Loneliness by Radcliffe Hall  

When this novel came out in 1928, the then editor of the Sunday Express said that he would 'rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel." That said, there is only one, rather obtuse, sexual reference in it. Few critics rate it as a classic novel, however, it is a classic in terms of storyline, being the first novel of its kind to explore Lesbianism. Read The Guardian's report here
Read the book

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Tropic of Cancer was "notorious for its candid sexuality". Published in 1934 in Paris, it was banned in the States and led to obscenity trials in the 1960s. It was not banned in the UK but the only copies that could be had were smuggled in. 

Read more



Read Angela Elliott's book, The Finish, which is first in the Venus Squared series of novels about an 18th century Covent Garden prostitute on Amazon, Kobo,  ibooks and Google Play