The little blue-enamelled toothpick case left quite an impression. Not because it was so remarkably beautiful, but because it seemed so random, useless even – in a good way. Many of the items currently on display in the V&A’s exhibition on Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill are of that quality, and that’s their attraction. There… Continue reading Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill at the V&A
Category: Eighteenth Century
The fun of deceiving your readers – and being found out
It must have been so much fun being a C17th wit hanging around your favourite tavern or coffee-house thinking up tall stories, scribbling them down and waiting to see how your readers reacted. Would they really believe that shepherds had found the remains of Moses his Tombe (1657) on Mount Nebo, or that Dutch sailors… Continue reading The fun of deceiving your readers – and being found out
French Revolutionaries & English Republicans: A bridge to the Continent
As its subtitle announces Rachel Hammersley’s French Revolutionaries and English Republicans (Woodbridge, 2005) is a study of the Cordeliers Club in Paris between 1790-1794. It traces the Club’s radical policies and associated writings in the years following the rebellion of 1789 and its attempts to influence the National Assembly as it forged a new constitution… Continue reading French Revolutionaries & English Republicans: A bridge to the Continent
