Review by Ann M. Shayne
A Roman urinal. Tudor garbage. A fishmonger's butcher block.
We could go on, but flipping through these three little books creates a generally gross enough smell that we'll stop now.
Imagine what would happen if Vanity Fair magazine went stale, and all the perfume strips rotted. You would have the Smelly Old History series, new from Oxford University Press.
Tudor Odors, Victorian Vapours, Roman Aromas. Choose your period of history, and choose your poison. And we do mean poison.
These books are designed for kids, the ones who thrive on booger jokes. The armchair scatologist of any age will pick up some history, but the core audience will appreciate the abundance of information about chamber pots, gangrene, and pus.
It's the human smells that are somehow the most disturbing. The pong (a favorite word in these books) of Henry VIII's diseased toe is a real experience, whether or not it's accurate.
Yes, we do whiff a flowery Victorian garden and a block of chocolate. But their proximity to the danker smells makes them a trained pleasure at best. Which, of course, is the point. These were grubby times, whether you were royal or common.
As a child we were fascinated with the lore of Elizabeth I's single bath a month. We wondered then, how did people manage to exist when the street system doubled as its sewers? One history teacher told me, "Well, they just got used to it. Nobody noticed, because everybody smelled that way."
Not bloody likely, we say. Tote these books around for a few days and try getting used to this:
The back of a sweaty Roman getting a massage. The river Thames during its use as a sewer. A Victorian public toilet. Oliver Twist-style factory fumes. A Roman delicacy: stuffed thrush soaked in a sauce made from rotting fish guts.
Congratulations to Oxford for a truly original way to bring history alive. It's genius. Pure, stinkin' genius.
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