Every age and social strata has its bad eggs, rule-breakers, and nose-thumbers, yet Elizabethan England seems particularly rife with troublemakers, notes Ruth Goodman. In this illustrated chronicle—a follow-up to How to Be a Victorian—she gives us a colorfully crude portrait of one of history's naughtiest periods, when table manners were appalling and derision was an art form. With "exhilarating and contagious" enthusiasm (Boston Globe), Goodman delves into advice manuals, court cases, and sermons to explain why quoting Shakespeare was poor form, and why curses hurled at women were almost always about sex.