The English Gentleman, by David Castronovo, is too thin and too scantily documented to be taken seriously as social history, but I liked it. It was one of the first social histories I’d read, and I still remember my shock at the idea that “gentlemen” could have been expected to drink themselves dead every night and make group visits to brothels.
Those insights probably wouldn’t be worth reading for most people today, as period films have done a decent job of disabusing us of the idea that sex began with the Kingsley Report.
