'A very good book' Andrew Marr, TelegraphScandal takes us on a roller-coaster ride from Regency London, where muck-raking scandal sheets were hawked in the streets, to the modern free-for-all where tabloid and internet gossip rule. From the madness of King George to the madness of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica, this book fizzes with the original frisson of each breaking story. It also goes behind the scenes to look at the mechanisms that disseminate gossip and the power and influence that it continues to exert.'Hugely enjoyable' Time Out Book of the Week 'A richly detailed and affectionate book... If you enjoy reading about unscrupulous swashbuckling hacks, this is the book for you... consider the dirt well and truly dished' Sunday Times 'Wilkes is a talented writer who knows how to craft a sentence well and how to keep the reader's attention' Literary Review 'Gossip can be every bit as fascinating if we haven't heard of the victims' Guardian 'Diligently researched and compiled' Daily Telegraph 'Roger Wilkes has pointedly chronicled the best and worst of the past 300 loving, loathing and inescapably interlocking years' TLS