Emily Cockayne

Vivid and absorbing...like all good history, it leaves the reader wanting to know more

Intelligent, instructive and brightly funny

A fine book packed with generosity, rivalry, misbehaviour, snobbery, love, murder and politics.

This curtain-twitching account is bottom-up history at its breezy best

An entirely delightful history of neighbour relations since the Middle Ages

A brisk but impressively comprehensive survey.

A very detailed historical survey of the upside and the downside of neighbouring since about 1300.

A great insight into how our homes and communities have grown and changed.

PA syndicated review - Manchester Evening News

Original, humorously historical and wittily anecdotal.

This intriguing social history charts the concept of neighbours through British history in thorough detail

Informative  but fun, with an important message about society, Cockayne’s history is  a human one, with all the heartache and joy that entails

This lively social history documents nine centuries of disputes, noise levels, wartime camaraderie and carparking issues. Fascinating

The avowed aim of this fascinating history of neighbours is to explore the delicate balance between people’s determination to protect their privacy and their simultaneous wish to cultivate contact with those who live close by

A History of Neighbours

Almost everyone has a neighbour. Neighbours can enrich or ruin our lives. They fascinate and worry us in equal measure. Soap operas watched by millions play with every lurid permutation of relationships in fictional neighbourhoods. Disputes over gigantic Leylandii and noise nuisance turn nasty and fill newspaper columns. These stories have a rich history - as long as we have lived in shelters, we have had neighbours. 
 
Emily Cockayne traces the story of the British neighbour through nine centuries - spanning Medieval, Tudor and Victorian periods, two world wars and up to today's modern, virtual world. Cheek by Jowl is social history at its most colourful and compelling and puts the people back in the houses and the houses back on the streets.

Emily Cockayne

Praise for Cheek by Jowl

Vivid and absorbing...like all good history, it leaves the reader wanting to know more

Intelligent, instructive and brightly funny

A lively study of neighbourly relations.

Vivid and absorbing...like all good history, it leaves the reader wanting to know more

Intelligent, instructive and brightly funny

A lively study of neighbourly relations.

Vivid and absorbing...like all good history, it leaves the reader wanting to know more

Intelligent, instructive and brightly funny

A lively study of neighbourly relations.

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter