Download or read book Dr Johnson s Friend and Robert Adam s Client Topham Beauclerk written by David Noy and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-05-11 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr Johnson said that he would walk to the ends of the earth to save Beauclerk. Other people who claimed to be his friends rejoiced at his early death. How did the beautiful youth of Francis Coates’ 1756 portrait become a man whose greatest claim to fame was causing an infestation of lice at Blenheim Palace through lack of personal hygiene? A great-grandson of Charles II and Nell Gwyn, he lived a privileged life thanks to fortuitously inherited wealth. He employed Robert Adam to build him a house at Muswell Hill which has almost completely disappeared from the records of Adam’s work due to a dispute about the bill. He was one of the leading book-collectors of the time, with a library of 30,000 volumes whose sale after his death was a major literary event. He also used his wealth to indulge interests in science and astronomy and a passion for gambling. As a result, he ran through his inheritance as quickly as he could sell it, falling into ever-increasing debt as his lawyer grew richer. Beauclerk knew all the leading figures of the British and French Enlightenments. He was a friend of Johnson, Adam Smith, David Hume, Horace Walpole, Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Wilkes and David Garrick. He met Rousseau and Voltaire, and immersed himself in French salon culture. He could charm people when he chose to, but did not always try. Recently he has been overshadowed by his wife, Lady Di (née Spencer), whose life by Carola Hicks (Improper Pursuits, 2001) has made her artistic talent and unconventional life well-known. The story of their adultery and marriage has not previously been told from Beauclerk’s point of view, and many other inaccuracies have crept into authoritative works such as the ODNB; he is regularly and unfairly dismissed as a bad husband. This biography shows that he was much more than the close associate of Johnson known from the pages of Boswell: a man of widely varied interests, from the Grand Tour to the contemporary theatre, who lived Enlightenment life to the full in a way which would not have been possible a generation earlier or later. Based on research in unpublished letters, legal documents and financial records, including some concerning the Adam house, as well as published diaries, letters and memoirs, it shows that he may have left no enduring legacy of his many talents, as even his friends admitted, but he made the most of all the opportunities available and lived a fascinating life which illuminates every aspect of Georgian elite society, from auctions to zoology, from care of one’s wig to building an observatory, and from mishaps in Venice to sea-therapy in Brighton.
Download or read book The Life of John Andr written by D. A. B. Ronald and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2019-01-19 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This biography of Britain’s spy chief during the Revolutionary War sheds new light on his conspiracy with Benedict Arnold—and his mysterious capture. John André was head of the British Army’s Secret Service in North America as the Revolutionary War entered its most decisive phase. In 1780, he masterminded the defection of the high-ranking American general Benedict Arnold. As the commander of West Point, Arnold agreed to turn the strategically vital fort over to the British. André and Arnold also conspired to kidnap George Washington. The secret negotiations between Arnold and André were protracted and fraught with danger. Arnold’s wife Peggy acted as go-between until September 21st, 1780, when the two men met face to face in no-man’s-land. But then André was captured forty-eight hours later, having broken every condition set by his commanding officer: he was within American lines, wearing civilian clothes, and carrying maps of West Point in his boots. When he announced himself as a spy, the Americans had no recourse. Tried by a military tribunal, he was convicted and hanged. André’s motives for his apparent sacrifice have baffled historians for generations. This biography provides a provocative answer to this mystery—explaining not only why he acted as he did, but how he wished others to see his actions.
Download or read book Samuel Johnson s Pragmatism and Imagination written by Stefka Ritchie and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2018-11-07 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The central theme of this book is an under-studied link between the canon of Francis Bacon’s and Isaac Newton’s scientific and philosophical thought and Samuel Johnson’s critical approach that can be traced in a textual study of his literary works. The interpretive framework adopted here encourages familiarity with the history and philosophy of science, confirming that the history of ideas is an entirely human construct that constitutes an integral part of intellectual history. This further endorses the argument that intermediality can only be of benefit to future research into the richness of Johnson’s literary style. As perceived boundaries are crossed between conventionally distinct communication media, the profile of Johnson that emerges is of a writer of passionate intelligence who was able to combine a pragmatic approach to knowledge with flights of imagination as a true artist.
Download or read book Mediterranean Families in Antiquity written by Sabine R. Huebner and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive study of families in the Mediterranean world spans the Bronze Age through Late Antiquity, and looks at families and households in various ancient societies inhabiting the regions around the Mediterranean Sea in an attempt to break down artificial boundaries between academic disciplines.
Download or read book The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity written by Oliver Nicholson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 1743 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity is the first comprehensive reference book covering every aspect of history, culture, religion, and life in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East (including the Persian Empire and Central Asia) between the mid-3rd and the mid-8th centuries AD, the era now generally known as Late Antiquity. This period saw the re-establishment of the Roman Empire, its conversion to Christianity and its replacement in the West by Germanic kingdoms, the continuing Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Persian Sassanian Empire, and the rise of Islam. Consisting of over 1.5 million words in more than 5,000 A-Z entries, and written by more than 400 contributors, it is the long-awaited middle volume of a series, bridging a significant period of history between those covered by the acclaimed Oxford Classical Dictionary and The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. The scope of the Dictionary is broad and multi-disciplinary; across the wide geographical span covered (from Western Europe and the Mediterranean as far as the Near East and Central Asia), it provides succinct and pertinent information on political history, law, and administration; military history; religion and philosophy; education; social and economic history; material culture; art and architecture; science; literature; and many other areas. Drawing on the latest scholarship, and with a formidable international team of advisers and contributors, The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity aims to establish itself as the essential reference companion to a period that is attracting increasing attention from scholars and students worldwide.
Download or read book Dr Johnson written by Norman Page and published by Springer. This book was released on 1987-06-18 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Architecture of Robert James Adam 1758 1794 written by Arthur Thomas Bolton and published by . This book was released on 1922 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to the Edinburgh Review written by Thomas Babington Macaulay and published by . This book was released on 1850 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Picturesque London written by Percy Fitzgerald and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-09-04 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Picturesque London" by Percy Fitzgerald. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
Download or read book A Book for a Rainy Day Or Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766 1833 written by John Thomas Smith and published by . This book was released on 1861 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Recollections of the Table talk of Samuel Rogers written by Samuel Rogers and published by London, Moxon. This book was released on 1856 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Prices of Books written by Henry Benjamin Wheatley and published by . This book was released on 1898 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Famous Houses and Literary Shrines of London written by Arthur St. John Adcock and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Soho and Its Associations written by Edward Francis Rimbault and published by London : Dulau. This book was released on 1895 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Equity and the Law of Trusts written by Philip Henry Pettit and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Improper Pursuits written by Carola Hicks and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With these words to Boswell, Samuel Johnson dismissed Lady Di Beauclerk, the wife of one of his closest friends, a woman of the highest rank, the daughter of a duke, who had forsaken her reputation, her place in society, her children, and her role as lady-in-waiting to the Queen for love. Born Lady Diana Spencer in 1735, the eldest child of the third Duke of Marlborough, she was expected rigidly to follow a traditional path through life: educated in the fashion considered suitable for a girl, and married to a man of the appropriate rank for a duke's daughter. But finding herself in a desperately unhappy marriage to Viscount Bolingbroke, Lady Di overturned convention. She left her husband, maintained a secret relationship with her lover, Topham Beauclerk, hid the birth of an illegitimate child, and eventually helped to support herself by painting. Lady Di Beauclerk was a highly gifted artist who was able to use her scandalous reputation as an adulteress, aristocratic woman to further her career as a painter and designer. She painted portraits, illustrated plays and books, provided designs for Wedgwood's innovative pottery, and decorated rooms with murals. Championed by her close friend Horace Walpole, whose letters illuminate all aspects of her life, she was able to establish herself as an admired artist at a time when women struggled to forge careers. Carola Hicks provides an enthralling account of eighteenth-century society, in which Lady Di encountered many of the most eminent artistic, literary, and political figures of the day. Improper Pursuits is an absorbing study of a singular life.
Download or read book Boswell s Life of Johnson Abridged and Edited With an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood written by James Boswell and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 818 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
