Georgian

Lord Byron in repose after having swum the Hellespont, by William Allan, 1831.

Modern Times

How did those living in an age of enlightenment see themselves?

Left: Illustration of Mary Hamilton from a miniature in a ring given by her to Mr John Dickenson after their engagement. Frontispiece (portrait detail) to Mary Hamilton, afterwards Mrs. John Dickenson, at Court and at Home, from Letters and Diaries 1756 to 1816, edited by her great-granddaughters Elizabeth and Florence Anson (John Murray, 1925). Right: George IV when Prince of Wales, by William Beechey, c.1798. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

This Is Not a Love Story

The correspondence between Mary Hamilton and the future George IV is often seen as evidence of a harmless crush in the Georgian court. It was nothing of the sort. 

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Refining the Body Beautiful

There is beauty to be had from the smallest of objects. In the 18th century, tweezers, toothpicks and clippers became the signs of a polite, and beautiful, society.

Engraving from a self-portrait, published in two of her works.

The First Female Anglo-Saxonist

In the 18th century, when women in scholarship were not encouraged and medieval languages were little-studied even by men, Elizabeth Elstob become a pioneer in Anglo-Saxon studies, her work even finding its way into the hands of Thomas Jefferson.

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Shopping in Georgian London

The world of shopping in Georgian London offered an array of retail experiences for women in pursuit of the ultimate in fashionable clothing, every bit as sophisticated as those open to the 21st-century shopper.

The Gordon Riots

George Rudé analyses the events of what started as an anti-Catholic protest, but ended with violence and looting.

The Hours of the Georgian Day

‘The present folly’, wrote Horace Walpole in 1777, ‘is late hours.’ To arrive late at a party in the Georgian era, writes John Riely, was a sign of fashionable distinction.