The Diary of Edmund Harrold, Wigmaker of Manchester 1712-15

Book excerpt: This volume presents a fully-referenced modern edition of the diary of the Manchester barber Edmund Harrold, covering the period 1712-1715. It is remarkable for its insights into his life and thoughts, laying open his struggles with alcohol, his attitudes to (and frequency of) marital sex, his reactions to the death of his three wives and 5 children, and his religious meditations upon these and other subjects. The diary also relates the ups and downs of his business, and the day-to-day realities of life as a provincial barber. More than this though, it is a frank, and often anguished, insight into the mind of an eighteenth century man, seeking to come to terms with himself, his god and a changing society.