The Long Eighteenth Century

How to Create the Perfect Wife.

June 13, 2013

The myth of one man’s effort to create a perfect woman is a recurring theme in Western literature, from Ovid’s telling of the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea in classical Rome to Lerner and Lowe’s My Fair Lady in twentieth-century America.* In each version of the story, the creator falls in love with his creation, [...]

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What Did the Old Pretender Pretend?

March 8, 2013

The story of England’s Glorious Revolution is generally summarized as follows: In 1688, the Protestant nobility of England, outraged by attacks on their constitution, rose up against the man usually described as the last Stuart king, James II, and offered his throne to his daughter and son-in-law, William and Mary of Orange.* James fled to [...]

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England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty

February 12, 2013

As I may have mentioned before, I’m happily bopping around in the long eighteenth century*. In the process I’m stumbling across all kinds of stuff that makes my brain fizz with ideas. Some of it I’m hoarding. But some of it is just too good not to share Today’s case in point: Admiral Sir Home [...]

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Word With a Past: Silhouette

January 22, 2013

I’m poking around in the long eighteenth century these days and stumbling across lots of surprising tidbits. Take silhouettes. I had long known that charming likenesses cut from black cardstock became a popular and affordable alternative to oil portraits in the mid-eighteenth century. To the extent that I thought about the word at all, I [...]

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Road Trip Through History: Bath

January 1, 2013

Having spent many hours enthralled by the novels of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, I was excited to arrive in Bath, our last stop in England. It was thrilling to have lunch in the Pump Room, to stroll through the Assembly Rooms where some of my favorite heroines danced the quadrille, and to see the [...]

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Road Trip Through History: The Royal Pavilion at Brighton

December 3, 2012

Visiting the Royal Pavilion at Brighton was a sentimental journey for me. As some of you may know, I did my PhD on the 20 year plan–in part because I kept wandering down odd and fascinating side roads that didn’t end up in the final dissertation.* Two of those academic dead ends were chinoiserie and [...]

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The Peasants Are Revolting

November 6, 2011

In September, 1773, three months before American colonists dumped tea in Boston harbor, Russian serfs in the Ural mountain region rose up and demanded emancipation from bondage. Discontent had been brewing among the serfs since 1762, when Tsar Peter III passed legislation that many serfs (mistakenly) interpreted as the first step toward their emancipation. Several [...]

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