Caret Press and The Vauxhall Society are pleased to announce the publication of Six Essays on Vauxhall Gardens by David E. Coke, a leading expert on London’s Georgian pleasure gardens. The papers in this collection originated in studies published on The Vauxhall Society website VauxhallHistory.org.
David is co-author with Alan Borg of Vauxhall Gardens: A History (Yale UP, 2011), and a consulting editor on VauxhallHistory.org.
Ross Davies, Chairman of The Vauxhall Society, says:
“We’re delighted that David’s Six Essays on Vauxhall Gardens not only updates Vauxhall Gardens: A History but is to be the first in a Caret Press series of essay collections by modern historians.”
Naomi Clifford of Caret Press (and a co-editor at VauxhallHistory.org) says:
“We are thrilled to be able to make David’s latest research available to the wider public. These illustrated essays, all based on new research, expand and explore subjects that were only touched on in the 2011 book, or have come to light since publication, and will be of interest to any student of Georgian and early Victorian society and culture.”
The essay subjects include:
- The surprising career of C.H. Simpson, Master of Ceremonies 1795–1835.
- Vauxhall Gardens in contemporary children’s board games.
- Evanion–the ‘Royal Conjuror’, supplier of refreshments to Vauxhall, and obsessive collector of entertainment ephemera.
- The record-breaking flight of the Royal Vauxhall Balloon in 1836.
- Evidence of the popular nostalgia for Vauxhall after it closed.
- Tracking the fate of Vauxhall’s outdoor bandstand.
Six Essays on Vauxhall Gardens will be available through Amazon print on demand and Ingram Global Distribution, and as a Kindle ebook (from 1 March 2022).
