Literature

Garrick’s Shakespeare Jubilee, 1769

When David Garrick, the most distinguished actor of his day, organised a splendid festival in honour of our greatest dramatist, writes Carola Oman, everything favoured him except the weather.

Voltaire and Peter the Great

‘The story of Charles XII,’ wrote Voltaire, ‘was entertaining; that of Peter instructive.’ A. Lentin describes a unique example of early modern Franco-Russian relations.

Retz and La Rochefoucauld

J.H.M. Salmon portrays two men of letters - François de La Rochefoucauld and Jean François Paul de Gondi - as mirrors to both each other, and to the seventeenth century French society they wrote about.

Defoe’s Tour and the Historian

F. Bastian finds that in composing his lively Tour, Defoe drew upon memories of journeys he had actually made and also upon the writings of earlier observers.