Georgian

John Nowell introduces and translates a contemporary portrait of the eighteenth-century actor at work, originally penned by G.C. Lichtenberg.

J. LaVerne Anderson describes how the post of British Ambassador to the rulers of France has been a difficult assignment, and not only in the eighteenth century.

Prudence Hannay introduces Lady Granville, the younger daughter of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. She bridges the gulf between two very different social periods. Brought up among the most dashing personalities of ‘the Devonshire House set’, she died in the great age of mid-Victorian respectability.

Romney Sedgwick describes how, under the pen-name of Junius, Sir Philip Francis ‘threw his firebrands’ at King and Government during the years 1769-72.

H.T. Dickinson reflects on the Abbe Guiscard’s assassination attempt on Queen Anne’s chief Minister had long-term effects on the Tory party.

“... At the distance of twenty-five years,” wrote Edward Gibbon, “I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first ... entered the Eternal City.” By J.J. Saunders .

John Gage profiles Loutherbourg, the Alsatian landscape-artist who lived in London from 1771 onwards and became a creator of striking theatrical designs and seemingly miraculous exhibitions.

During his lifetime, George II's son accomplished little of note. However, writes Romney Sedgwick, Frederick's propaganda in his own political interests left behind two fictions that profoundly influenced later historians.

Though he was a less inspired architect than Wren or Vanbrugh, writes Tudor Edwards, Hawksmoor’s life and work are inextricably interwoven with theirs and he contributed largely to their great achievement.

Francis Watson delights in Defoe's inimitable personage not only as the hero of one of the greatest of all adventure stories, but “as the portrait of an Englishman, a representative of the contemporary middle class, with a Protestant stimulus to hard work, founding a new age of commercial, industrial and political development.”