Women, Sociability and Theatre in Georgian London

A highly illustrated and original contribution to the cultural history of sociability in the eighteenth century.

Gillian Russell (Author)

9780521867320, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 June 2007

308 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 2.5 cm, 0.632 kg

'This is a book that links cultural history, theatre history, and gender to expand our understanding of each and to shed new light on the period as a whole.' The Journal of Theatre Survey

Mid-eighteenth-century London witnessed a major expansion in public culture as a result of a rapidly commercialising society. Of the many sites of entertainment, the most celebrated (and often notorious) were the Carlisle House club, the Pantheon, and the Ladies Club or Coterie. In this major study of these institutions and the fashionable sociability they epitomised, Gillian Russell examines how they transformed metropolitan cultural life. Associated with lavish masquerades, excesses of fashion, such as elaborate hairstyles, and scandalous intrigues, these venues suggested a feminisation of public life which was profoundly threatening, not least to the theatre of the period. In this highly illustrated and original contribution to the cultural history of the eighteenth century, Russell reveals fresh perspectives on the theatre and on canonical plays such as The School for Scandal, as well as suggesting a prehistory for British Romanticism.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. The Circle of Soho: Teresa Cornelys and Carlisle House
3. Harmonic routs and midnight revels: the politics of masquerade
4. 'Dissipation's hydra reign': Almack's and the Coterie
5. 'Welcome to the Pleasure Dome': the London Pantheon
6. Lady Bab and Mrs Ab: the woman of fashion and the theatre
7. 'Alias, alias, alias': the trials of the Duchess of Kingston
8. 'Lady Teazle's occupation's o'er'
9. Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Theatre studies [AN]