Clean and Decent

CLEAN AND DECENT, says the author, 'is meant to entertain, even if scholarship does keep breaking through'. Subtitled The Fascinating History of the Bathroom and the Water-closet, and of sundry Habits, Fashions and Accessories of the Toilet it is a fascinating excursion into the household's most private room. Who would have supposed that the Romans had lagged hot-water pipes? That Queen Elizabeth I had a valve water-closet? That Louis XIV had cushions in his bath? This informative and hilarious book leads the reader to believe that more may be learnt about the past from bathrooms rather than battlefields, and that patterns of social history are mirrored in the bathwater or found locked in the water-closet.