Shapely Ankle Preferr'd: A History of the Lonely Hearts Ad

Every week thousands of people advertise for love either in newspapers, magazines or online. But if you think this is a modern phenomenon, think again - the ads have been running for over three centuries. In 1695, nestling in a weekly pamphlet on Husbandry and Trade, surrounded by ads for a cobbler's apprentice, an Arabian stallion and a second-hand bed, was the brave plea of a young gentleman who 'would willingly Match himself to some Good Young Gentlewoman, that has a Fortune of e3000 or thereabouts'.This was just the beginning. In the 1730s papers carried regular ads in which income or respectability were the most desired qualities, though some asked for a 'shapely ankle' or a 'non-dancer' and by 1900 twenty-five British newspapers were dedicated solely to matrimonial ads. Shapely Ankle Preferr'd tells the story of ads of all kinds - from aristocrats and MPs, milliners and nurses, country squires and city swells, even from a man who had lost a leg 'due to the kick of an Ostrich, in the East Indies'. The reasons are strangely familiar- the size of the city makes it hard to meet people; they are busy at work; they don't have many friends; they've just returned from abroad. Loneliness is by no means new.Every advertisement is a snapshot of the age, from the criminal (indeed murderous) scams of the 1890s to the sad appeals of widows after the Second World War. This is a brief history of sex, marriage and society over three centuries - hilarious and heartbreaking by turn.