Who is Sandy Lerner? where did this Fairy Godmother of English women's literature appear from?
Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell Great Britain's first "Domestic Goddess"
Josiah Spode & Sons: Founders of the Spode Dynasty Inventors of English Bone China
Kate Greenaway: Regency Revivalist The artist who brought Regency Style to the Victorian Era
Rudolph Ackermann and his Repository of Arts Mr. Ackermann's shop in the Strand was the famous Repository of Arts, a print and picture emporium founded in 1796 by Rudolph Ackermann (1764-1834). Ackermann was born in Saxony and apprenticed to his father as a coach-builder. He designed coaches and ...
Hannah More: Expert Abolitionist Championing the poor and underprivileged in Regency society
Rolinda Sharples: Painter of the Everyday Rolinda Sharples (1793–1838), was an English painter who specialized in portraits and genre paintings in oil. She exhibited at the Royal Academy, and at the Society of British Artists, where she became an honorary member.
Rolinda Sharples was born...
Hannah Glasse mother of the modern dinner party
Mary Elizabeth (Williams) Lucy The ordinary life and an extraordinary woman...
Ozias Humphrey (1742-1810) Ozias Humphrey (8 September 1742 – 9 March 1810) was a leading English painter of portrait miniatures, later oils and pastels, of the 18th century. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1791, and in 1792 he was appointed Portrait Painter in Crayons ...
William Wilberforce William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist, and abolitionist who led the parliamentary campaign against the slave trade.The recent film, Amazing Grace, highlights his career as a parliamentarian, ...
James Stanier Clarke: Librarian to the Prince of Wales
"I am quite honoured by your thinking me capable of drawing such a clergyman as you gave the sketch of... But I assure you I am not. The comic part of the character I might be equal to, but not the good, the enthusiastic, the literary. Such a man's c...
D'Arcy Wentworth: Heroic Inspiration? Jane Austen's Aunt was once at risk of transportation to Botany Bay for shoplifting. It is piquant then, that Austen named two of her major male characters Fitzwilliam Darcy (Pride and Prejudice) and Captain Wentworth (Persuasion), because a leading ...
Elizabeth Montague: Queen of the Bluestockings Elizabeth Robinson was born very wealthy and well-connected. She grew up in Coveney, Cambridgeshire, under supervision of her grandparents, and was frequent childhood visitor to Cambridge where her grandfather was Librarian of Cambridge University. As...
Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun "So prettily done! Just as your drawings always are, my dear. I do not know any body who draws so well as you do. The only thing I do not thoroughly like is, that she seems to be sitting out of doors, with only a little shawl over her shoulders ...
Samuel Fancourt: Founder of the First Circulating Library Charles Hayter had been at Lyme oftener than suited her; and when they dined with the Harvilles there had been only a maid-servant to wait, and at first Mrs Harville had always given Mrs Musgrove precedence; but then, she had received so very h...
Frances Brawne: John Keats' "Bright Star" 'Shall I give you Miss Brawne? She is about my height with a fine style of countenance of the lengthened sort - she wants sentiment in every feature - she manages to make her hair look well - her nostrils are fine though a little painful - her mou...
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron: "Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know" I have read [Byron's] The Corsair, mended my petticoat, and have nothing else to do."
Jane Austen to Cassandra
March 5, 1814
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), ...
James Henry "Leigh Hunt" Liberal author and Poet James Henry Leigh Hunt (19 October 1784 – 28 August 1859) was an English critic, essayist, poet and writer. He was born at Southgate, London, Middlesex, where his parents had settled after leaving the newly formed United States of America. His f...
Franz Joseph Haydn: Father of the String Quartet Franz Joseph Haydn (March 31, 1732 – May 31, 1809) was an Austrian composer. He was one of the most important, prolific and prominent composers of the classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Qu...
Mary Russell Mitford: Author of Our Village, and other Regency novels Mary Russell Mitford (16 December 1787 - 10 January 1855), was an English novelist and dramatist. She was born at Alresford, Hampshire. Her place in English literature is as the author of Our Village. This series of sketches of village scenes an...
William Thomas Beckford: Author, Architect and Rogue You certainly must have heard before I can tell you that Col. Orde has married our cousin, Margt. Beckford, the Marchess. of Douglas's sister. The papers say that her father disinherits her, but I think too well of an Orde to suppose that she has n...
Percy Bysshe Shelley: Epic poet and wanderer Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 – July 8, 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets and is widely considered to be among the finest lyric poets in the English language. He is perhaps most famous for such anthology pieces as Ozymand...
George Frideric Handel: More about the man who wrote the Messiah George Frideric Handel (23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759)was a German-born Baroque composer who is famous for his operas, oratorios and concerti grossi. Born as Georg Friedrich Händel in Halle, he spent most of his adult life in England, beco...
Felicia Hemans: Author of The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England He was evidently a young man of considerable taste in reading, though principally in poetry; and besides the persuasion of having given him at least an evening's indulgence in the discussion of subjects, which his usual companions had probably no c...
Mary Brunton: The Forgotten Scottish Novelist We have tried to get Self-controul, but in vain.--I should like to know what her Estimate is--but am always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever--& of finding my own story & my own people all forestalled.
Jane Austen
Tuesday 30 Ap...
Ralph Allen and John Woods (Elder and Younger) Ralph Allen: 1693-1764
Of the three men generally held to have been responsible for the city of Bath's sensational eighteenth-century development—Ralph Allen, Beau Nash and John Wood the Elder—Allen is arguably the most remarkable. He came to t...
Christopher Anstey: Guide to Bath Christopher Anstey, English poet, was the son of the rector of Brinkley, Cambridgeshire, where he was born on the 31st of October 1724. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself for his Latin verses. He becam...
Mary Robinson: A Life Lived Extraordinarily "Yesterday, a messenger arrived in town, with the very interesting and pleasing intelligence of the Tarleton, armed ship, having, after a chase of some months, captured the Perdita frigate, and brought her safe into Egham port. The Perdita is the pr...
Ann Radcliffe: Mother of the Gothic Novel Ann Radcliffe was an English author, a pioneer of the gothic novel. She was born Ann Ward in Holborn, July 9, 1764. Her father was William Ward, a haberdasher; her mother was Ann Oates. At the age of 22, she married journalist William Radcliffe, ow...
Joseph Bramah: Inventor Extraordinaire Scarcely any thing was talked of the whole day, or next morning, but their visit to Rosings. Mr Collins was carefully instructing them in what they were to expect, that the sight of such rooms, so many servants, and so splendid a dinner might no...
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley For though shy, he did not seem reserved; it had rather the appearance of feelings glad to burst their usual restraints; and having talked of poetry, the richness of the present age, and gone through a brief comparison of opinion as to the first...
William Wordsworth: Poet of the Lake District But while we are on the subject of Poetry, what think you, Miss Heywood, of Burns' Lines to his Mary? -- Oh I there is Pathos to madden one! -- If ever there was a Man who felt, it was Burns. -- Montgomery has all the Fire of Poetry, Wordsworth has...
John Playford: The English Dancing Master
John Playford was born in Norwich in 1623, and died in London in 1686. His father was a mercer, also named John. Local records show that he was one of a large family, many of whom were scriveners or stationers. While his brother Matthew was record...
Robert Burns: The Voice of Scotland But while we are on the subject of Poetry, what think you, Miss Heywood, of Burns' Lines to his Mary? -- Oh I there is Pathos to madden one! -- If ever there was a Man who felt, it was Burns. -- Montgomery has all the Fire of Poetry, Wordsworth has...
Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Thomas Lawrence Henry and I went to the exhibition in Spring Gardens. It is not thought a good collection, but I was very well pleased, particularly (pray tell Fanny) with a small portrait of Mrs. Bingley, excessively like her.
I went in hopes of seeing one of ...
Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough was born in 1727 in Sudbury, Suffolk, England. His father was a schoolteacher involved with the wool trade. At the age of fourteen he impressed his father with his pencilling skills so that he let him go to Lo...
Lancelot "Capability" Brown and Henry Repton
He talked of foregrounds, distances, and second distances -- side-screens and perspectives -- lights and shades; and Catherine was so hopeful a scholar that when they gained the top of Beechen Cliff, she voluntarily rejected the whole cit...
Poetic Pain: The Life of William Cowper Thomson, Cowper, Scott -- she would buy them all over and over again: she would buy up every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands; and she would have every book that tells her how to admire an old twisted tree.
Sense and Se...
Maria Edgeworth: Jane Austen's Gothic Inspiration
It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda"; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the livelies...
Sir Walter Scott: Author & Critic Also read again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonder...
Mary Wollstonecraft:The first of the modern feminists With the publication of Oxford University Press' all new combined A Vindication of the Righes of Woman/A Vindication of the Rights of Man, it's author, feminist revolutionary Mary Wollstonecraft deserves, perhaps, another look. Who was this woman wh...
Only a Novel: The Life of Fanny Burney "And what are you reading, Miss -- ?"
"Oh! It is only a novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame.
"It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda"; or, in short, only some work in which t...
The Indomitable Mrs. Siddons "Well, mother, I have done something for you that you will like. I have been to the theatre, and secured a box for to-morrow night. A'n't I a good boy? I know you love a play; and there is room for us all. It holds nine."
Charles Musgrove, Persuasi...
The Delectable Dora Jordan The tragic life of Britain's Queen of Comedy
John Keats Writer, Poet and Austen successor?
