GEORGIANS IN 100 FACTS

A fun fact-filled stocking filler to learn curious snippets about George I who elevated both the maypole and the elephant to a peerage, the Grand Tour which brought Italy to our doorstep, how gin was sold by the barrow and drunk by the pint, the people who worked on beaver pelts who really did become 'as mad as a hatter', the Georgians who love joining clubs, a vicar who discovered aspirin 2,000 years after the Greeks forgot it, men who were peacocks, Handel who gave us Zadok, Water Music and Messiah, the waters of Bath which tasted foul but which had thousands of takers, Mr Addis who made both the toothbrush and a fortune, and if the pox didn't kill you, the cure certainly would. Here are cosmetics, print shops, banks notes, shoelaces, smugglers, Mary Wollstonecraft, Dr Johnson, and the fact that the Lord Mayor's carriage has not needed an MOT or a road licence in 250 years and why we nearly had Queen Charlotte and not Queen Victoria. History in bite-sized chunks from this extraordinary era, the start of the British Empire, the loss of the American colonies, and the birth of what became the industrial revolution. 192pp, paperback.