Research

 
The Georgian period

• Picard, Liza. Dr. Johnson’s London.
• Porter, Roy. English Society in the 18th Century.
• Severs, Dennis. 18 Folgate Street: The Tale of a House in Spitalfields.
• Vickery, Amanda. The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England.

London books

• Ackroyd, Peter. London: The Biography.
• Bell, Walter G. et al. London Wall Through Eighteen Centuries.
• Matthews, John and Chesca Potter. The Aquarian Guide to Legendary London.
• Hyde, Ralph. The A to Z of Georgian London.
• Tames, Richard. A Traveller’s History of London.
• Whitfield, Peter. London: A Life in Maps.

Alchemy

• Abraham, Lyndy. A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery.
• Albertus (Frater). Alchemist’s Handbook.
• Eberly, John. Al-Kimia: The Mystical Islamic Essence of the Sacred Art of Alchemy.
• Hoke, Jeff. The Museum of Lost Wonder.
• Holmyard, E.J. Alchemy.
• Jung, Carl. Jung on Alchemy. Ed. Nathan Schwartz-Salant.
• Linden, Stanton J. The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton.
• Morris, Richard. The Last Sorcerers: The Path from Alchemy to the Periodic Table.
• Newman, William R. Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature.
• Paracelsus. Four Treatises. Ed. Henry E. Sigerist.
• Read, John. From Alchemy to Chemistry.
• Roob, Alexander. Alchemy and Mysticism: The Hermetic Cabinet.
• Webster, Charles. From Paracelsus to Newton: Magic and the Making of Modern Science.

Intellectual history

• Clarke, Norma. Dr Johnson’s Women.
• Eger, Elizabeth and Lucy Peltz. Brilliant Women: 18th-Century Bluestockings.
• Gilbert, Adrian. The New Jerusalem: Rebuilding London: The Great Fire, Christopher Wren and the Royal Society.
• Gribbin, John. The Fellowship: Gilbert, Bacon, Harvey, Wren, Newton, and the Story of a Scientific Revolution.
• Purver, Margery. The Royal Society: Concept and Creation.

Cometary astronomy

• Calder, Nigel. The Comet Is Coming: The Feverish Legacy of Mr. Halley.
• Lancaster Brown, Peter. Halley’s Comet & the Principia.
• Moore, Patrick and John Mason. The Return of Halley’s Comet.
• Schechner, Sara J. Comets, Popular Culture, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology.
• Yeomans, Donald K. Comets: A Chronological History of Observation, Science, Myth, and Folklore.

Isaac Newton

• Dobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. The Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy; or, “The hunting of the greene lyon.”
• Hall, A. Rupert. Isaac Newton: Eighteenth-Century Perspectives.
• Manuel, Frank Edward. The Religion of Isaac Newton.
• White, Michael. Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer.

Faerie lore

• Briggs, Katherine. British Folk Tales and Legends.
• Briggs, Katherine. The Faeries in Tradition and Literature.
• Keightley, Thomas. The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves & Other Little People.
• Simpson, Jacqueline. A Dictionary of English Folklore.
• Westwood, Jennifer and Jacqueline Simpson. The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England’s Legends from Spring-Heeled Jack to the Witches of Warboys.

Classical mythology

• Bulfinch, Thomas. Bulfinch’s Mythology.
• Evslin, Bernard. Gods, Demigods and Demons: An Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology.
• Hamilton, Edith. Mythology.

Middle Eastern history and culture

• Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh. Persian Myths.
• Euben, Roxanne Leslie. Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers in Search of Knowledge.
• Faroqhi, Suraiya. Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire.

Clothing

• Braun and Schneider. Historic Costume in Pictures.
• Brooke, Iris and James Laver. English Costume from the Seventeenth Through the Nineteenth Centuries.
• Hart, Avril and Susan North. Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Fashion in Detail.
• Peacock, John. Costume 1066-1990s: A Complete Guide to English Costume Design and History.

Other topics

• Cockayne, Emily. Hubbub: Filth, Nose, and Stench in England.
• Fraser, Antonia, ed. The Houses of Hanover and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. (series: A Royal History of England)
• Gross, Francis. A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.
• Shesgreen, Sean, ed. Engravings by Hogarth.
• Wilson, David M. The British Museum: A History.
• Winder, Robert. Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain.
• Yorke, Trevor. Georgian and Regency Houses Explained.

Period literature

• Abrams, M. H. et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1.
• Bartel, Robert. Johnson’s London: Selected Source Materials for Freshman Research Papers.
• Dawood, N.J., trans. Tales from the Thousand and One Nights.
• McCarthy, Justin Huntly, trans. The Thousand and One Days: Persian Tales.
• Shakir, M.H., trans. The Qur’an.

The Internet, of course, was also an endlessly valuable research. Aside from the usual suspects (the Oxford English Dictionary, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and Wikipedia), I made frequent visits to the Royal Society website, Theoi Greek Mythology, British History Online‘s copy of Old and New London (among other books), several webpages about the Vauxhall Gardens, and a now-defunct link to scans of The Gentleman’s Magazine. I also used both Stellarium and another astronomical program, Celestia, to work out some heavenly details.