Chivalry and the Birth of Celebrity

Where are the origins of the modern cult of celebrity to be found? According to one view celebrity was a by-product of the growth of mass literacy and the rise of the popular press in the late 19th century. The word ‘celebrity’ as applied to a person does not appear in print until 1849 and was not to enter common usage until sometime later. A contrary view, however, is that even if the noun had not yet emerged to describe the phenomenon the substance of celebrity culture was already found in 18th-century London. A free press, an explosion in the number of printing houses and the existence of a public interested in new ways of thinking about themselves all fuelled interest in figures, such as Whig statesman Charles James Fox (1749-1806), who were for some reason notorious or had recognisable extrovert personalities.