Dimensions
136 x 214 x 20mm
An examination of the 18th century world of literature, a time when men and women of fashion led their lives under the avid scrutiny of a public with a sharp appetite for scandal and sensation.
In the period between the Age of Reason and the Romantic Revival - the so-called Age of Scandal - aristocratic and privileged eccentrics flourished and the professional writer declined. Here we meet notorious persons such as the Marquis de Sade; the Duke of Queensberry, who dislocated London's milk supply; and the Countess of Kingston, who journeyed to Rome in the hope of seducing the Pope. There are also the lesser figures like the Misses Gunning, who were so beautiful that seven hundred people sat up all night to see them leave an inn.
