This volume offers a unique historical perspective on the ways that everyday life in early modern London both challenged and constituted manhood. Through the close examination of literary texts, primary sources, and the material artifacts of urbanity, leading authors in the field of early modern studies explore a range of bad behaviors--binge drinking at taverns, dicing at gaming houses, and procuring prostitutes at barbershops--in order to challenge the notion that a corrupt city ruined innocent young men. This collection shows that alternative modes of manhood radically revised the emotional, imaginative, and cultural geographies of London.

Leading authors in the field of early modern studies explore a range of bad behaviours - like binge drinking, dicing, and procuring prostitutes at barbershops - in order to challenge the notion that early modern London was a corrupt city that ruined innocent young men.