Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 12, 2015

Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies, published from 1757 to 1795, was an annual directory of prostitutes working in and around Covent Garden, London. It sold for two shillings and sixpence, and in 1791 had an estimated circulation of around 8,000 copies. Each edition contains entries describing the physical appearance and sexual specialities of about 120–190 prostitutes, in sometimes lurid detail. While most entries compliment their subjects, some are critical of bad habits, and a few women are even treated as pariahs, perhaps having fallen out of favour with the lists' authors, who are never revealed. Samuel Derrick is normally credited for originating Harris's List, which may have been named after a Covent Garden pimp, Jack Harris. A Grub Street hack, Derrick may have written the lists from 1757 until his death in 1769; thereafter, the annual's authors are unknown. As the public's opinion began to turn against London's sex trade, and with reformers petitioning the authorities to take action, those involved in the release of Harris's List were in 1795 fined and imprisoned. Modern writers tend to view Harris's List as erotica.