Mudlark’d

A captivating history of London as told through objects recovered from the muddy banks of the Thames and the lives of the people who owned them

Mudlark’d combines insights from two hundred rare objects discovered on the foreshore of the River Thames with a wealth of breathtaking illustrations to uncover the hidden histories of ordinary people from prehistory to today. Malcolm Russell tells the stories behind each find, revealing the habits, customs, and artistry of the people who created and used it.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, London was the busiest port in the world, exchanging goods and ideas with people from every continent. The shores of the Thames have long been densely packed with taverns, brothels, and markets, and the river’s muddy banks are a repository of intriguing and precious objects that evoke long-forgotten ways of life. With Russell as your guide, a bottleneck of a jug is shown to be a talisman to counter the ill effects of witchcraft. Glass beads expose the brutal realities of the transatlantic slave trade. Clay tobacco pipes uncover the lives of Victorian magicians. A scrap of Tudor cloth illuminates the experiences of Dutch and French religious refugees.

These are just some of the stories told in Mudlark’d, which also contains a primer, giving advice on how to mudlark on tidal rivers around the world and outlining the tools and equipment you will need.

"Surprisingly beautiful and poignant … No matter how humble, each [artefact] is artfully photographed against slimy-green stones or driftwood. Indeed Mudlark’d is both incentive and guide to any budding time traveller."---Jacqueline Riding, The Art Newspaper

"Take[s] us on a journey of historical imagination … The book is itself a thing of beauty, with handsome illustrations and Matthew Williams-Ellis’s foreshore photographs that help us take off on flights of fancy."

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Absorbing . . . [a] magnificent book . . . beautifully illustrated.

"[A] beautiful new book."---Rebecca Kurson, Book & Film Globe

"A fascinating look at the front lines of amateur archaeology."

"[An] impressively illustrated and researched volume, Russell records the flotsam of humbler objects—from buttons to spindle whorls—that have been washed onto the littered Thames foreshore."---Colin Thubron, New York Review of Books

"A highly original and compelling new book, Mudlark’d . . . unlocks essential but often overlooked episodes from London’s long history via 27 of the author’s mudlarked finds, as well as nearly 200 other historical objects discovered along the city’s main waterway. With its lush, full-color illustrations and lively, engaging texts, the book reveals centuries of life in London through a fresh and utterly fascinating lens."---Lauren Moya Ford, Hyperallergic

"Mr. Russell makes sense of the millennia of currents that jumbled together bullet casings, rosary beads, printers’ metal type and bristle-less toothbrushes."---Eve M. Kahn, New York Times

"Good job Malcolm Russell. Thank you for being a mudlarker."---Karen Kilgariff, My Favorite Murder