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Uses the collections of ephemera popular in the late seventeenth century as a way to understand the reading habits, publishing strategies and thought processes of late Stuart print culture. Cheap' genres of print such as ballads, almanacs and playing cards were part of everyday life in seventeenth-century society - ubiquitous and disposable. Toward the end of the century, however, individuals began to preserve, arrange and display articles of cheap print within carefully curated collections. Wh...

A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR A VOGUE BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A rollicking read... [Ostler] tells Elizabeth's story with admirable style and gusto' Sunday Times 'Terrifically entertaining: if you liked Bridgerton, you’ll love this. . . and her research is impeccable' Evening Standard When the glamorous Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess of Kingston, Countess of Bristol, went on trial at Westminster Hall for bigamy in April 1776, the story drew more att...

In 1799, as part of the Second Coalition against France, an Anglo-Russian army landed in Holland to overthrow the Batavian Republic and to reinstate the Stadtholder William V of Orange. Initially called 'The Secret Expedition', although not really a secret for both sides, the description of the invasion reads like a novel. Five major battles were fought between armies of four different nations, with unexpected deeds of heroism and unexpected defeats. There were secret negotiations and rumours of...

"Monarchs : they're just like us. They entertain their friends and eat and worry about money. Henry VIII tripped over his dogs. George II threw his son out of the house. James I had to cut back on the alcohol bills. In Behind the Throne, historian Adrian Tinniswood uncovers the reality of five centuries of life at the English court, taking the reader on a remarkable journey from one Queen Elizabeth to another and exploring life as it was lived by clerks and courtiers and clowns and crowned heads...

An introduction to the raucous yet educational ‘gap year’ tours of Europe taken by wealthy British aristocrats in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. For many young eighteenth-century aristocrats, the Grand Tour was an essential rite of passage. Spending many months travelling established routes through France and Italy, they would visit the great cultural sites of western Europe – from Paris, through to Venice, Florence and Rome – ostensibly absorbing art, architecture and culture....

King of Britain for sixty years and the last king of what would become the United States, George III inspired both hatred and loyalty and is now best known for two reasons: as a villainous tyrant for America's Founding Fathers, and for his madness, both of which have been portrayed on stage and screen.In this concise and penetrating biography, Jeremy Black turns away from the image-making and back to the archives, and instead locates George's life within his age: as a king who faced the loss of...

An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library. This book offers the first full-length study of Charlotte Smith's Elegiac Sonnets and clarifies its 'place' - in multiple ways - in literary history as a work celebrated for 'making it new', yet deeply engaged with the literary past. It argues that Smith's sonnets are constituted by three intertwined concerns: with tradition, place and the sonnet form itself, whereby the subjects of...

Liverpool grew rapidly in the Georgian period as it was a major port for Atlantic trade, rivalling any other city in the UK outside London in terms of prosperity and population. During the 18th and 19th centuries the city embarked on an ambitious building programme to demonstrate its new found wealth and power. Although some of these buildings have been lost today, much of Georgian Liverpool remains and a vital part of the heritage of Liverpool is the legacy of the Georgian town planners and the...

Discover the recipes for Mrs Rooke's Very Good Plum Cake and Lady Harbord's Marigold Cheese. Learn how to preserve gooseberries as green as they grow' and make Sir Theodore Colladon's Peace Flower Syrup. Feast on Lady St Quintin's Dutch Pudding and Mrs Eall's Candied Cowslips. Then wash it all down with Lady Strickland's Strong Mead or some Right Red Dutch Currant Wine. These are just some of the delightful Georgian recipes found in the receipt books of Sabine Winn, the eighteenth-century Swis...

The 2019 From Reason to Revolution conference took as its theme the experiences of the ordinary British soldier in the era 1721-1815, from enlistment, through service at home, to life on campaign and the experience of battle. This book presents the proceedings of that conference in full, along with an introduction by series editor Andrew Bamford This was an era in which the social position of the soldier began to change, as did the relationship between the Army and society at large. Soldiers s...

William IV, the 'Sailor King', reigned for just seven years. Rash and impetuous as a young man, he was sent to join the navy by his father, George III, to bring him to order, but he was overpromoted at an early age and saw his years of active service marked by a series of calamities. He was also notorious for his mounting debts and his long relationship with the actress Mrs Jordan, with whom he had ten children.Yet, as Roger Knight, one of Britain's foremost naval historians, shows in this conci...

This is an engaging account of Austen's life and work, arranged as a series of walking tours through the towns and countryside she knew and loved - the settings for her novels. The 15 circular walks in the book describe the country houses, churches, great estates and elegant cities Austen knew and introduce the reader to the real-life people she met, many of whom gave her hints for the characters in her novels. The walks include Godmersham House, the inspiration for Pemberley in Pride and Prejud...

August, 1755. Newcastle, on the north bank of the Tyne. In the fields, men and women are getting the harvest in. Sunlight, or rain. Scudding clouds and backbreaking labour. Three hundred feet underground, young Charles Hutton is at the coalface. Cramped, dust-choked, wielding a five-pound pick by candlelight. Eighteen years old, he's been down the pits on and off for more than a decade, and now it looks like a life sentence. No unusual story, although Charles is...

Between 1815 and the Duke of Wellington's death in 1852, the Battle of Waterloo became much more than simply a military victory. While other countries marked the battle and its anniversary, only Britain actively incorporated the victory into their national identity, guaranteeing that it would become a ubiquitous and multi-layered presence in British culture. By examining various forms of commemoration, celebration, and recreation, Who Owned Waterloo? demonstrates that Waterloo's significance to...

The Plymouth Building Accounts record the expenditure on three public building projects undertaken in Plymouth between 1564 and 1620, including the building of the Guildhall in 1606-7. This edition, with introduction, tells us much about the city's builders, their wages, and the techniques they used, and will interest historians of architecture and of urban economies.

An engaging, accessible introduction to reading and understanding early modern English manuscripts This engaging book provides an essential introduction to the manuscript in early modern England. From birth to death, parish record to probate inventory, writing framed the lives of the early modern English. The book offers a detailed technical introduction to the handwriting of the period, from "secretary hand" through the "copperplate" that defined the early British Empire. Case studies trace t...