It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone loves sweets. What can match the sinful pleasures of extending one's hands into a box of chocolates and withdrawing it to investigate which brightly wrapped gem you have picked? From comfits, dragees and lozenges to pastilles, sherbets and subtleties, from the Saracens and Aztecs to Victoria sweet magnates and the twenty-first century's hi-tech manufacturers, Tim Richardson, the world's first confectionary historian, has written a fascinating and hugely entertaining (not to say mouthwatering) history of mankind's love affair with all things sweet.

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