Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies

Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies, published from 1757 to 1795, was an annual directory of prostitutes then working in Georgian London. A small, attractive pocketbook, it was printed and published in Covent Garden, and sold for two shillings and sixpence. A contemporary report of 1791 estimates its circulation at about 8,000 copies annually.

Each edition contains entries describing the physical appearance and sexual specialities of about 120–190 prostitutes who worked in and around Covent Garden. Through their erotic prose, the lists' entries review some of these women in lurid detail. While most compliment their subjects, some are critical of bad habits, and a few women are even treated as pariahs, perhaps having fallen out of favour with the lists' authors, who are never revealed.

Samuel Derrick is the man normally credited for the design of Harris's List, possibly having been inspired by the activities of a Covent Garden pimp, Jack Harris. A Grub Street hack, Derrick may have written the lists from 1757 until his death in 1769; thereafter, the annual's authors are unknown. Throughout its print run it was published pseudonymously by H. Ranger, although from the late 1780s it was printed by three men: John and James Roach, and John Aitkin.

As the public's opinion began to turn against London's sex trade, and with reformers petitioning the authorities to take action, those involved in the release of Harris's List were in 1795 fined and imprisoned. That year's edition was the last to be published; by then its content was cruder, lacking the originality of earlier editions. Modern writers tend to view Harris's List as erotica; in the words of one author, it was designed for "solitary sexual enjoyment".

The earliest printed editions of Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies appeared after Christmas 1756. Published by "H. Ranger", the annual was advertised on the front pages of newspapers, and sold in Covent Garden and at booksellers' stalls. Each edition comprises an attractive pocketbook, "beautifully packaged ... in the modish style of the twelves". They usually contain no more than 150 pages of relatively thin paper, on which are printed the details of between 120 and 190 prostitutes then working in Covent Garden. Priced in 1788 at two shillings and sixpence, Harris's List was affordable for the middle classes but expensive for a working class man.

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