John Wilkes: The Lives of a LibertineAshgate, 2006 - 282 Seiten John Wilkes remains one of the most colourful and intriguing characters of eighteenth-century Britain. Born in 1725, the son of a prosperous London distiller, he was given the classical education of a gentleman, before entering politics as a Whig. Finding his party in opposition following the accession of George III in 1760 he took up his pen with sensational effect, and made a career out of excoriating the new administration and promoting the Whig interest. His charismatic style and vicious wit soon ensured that he became a figurehead for the radical cause, earning him many admirers and many enemies. Amongst the latter were the king, and the artist William Hogarth who famously depicted Wilkes as a grinning, squint-eyed, pug-nosed agent of misrule. Whilst Wilkes's political career has been much explored, particularly the period between 1763 and 1774, much less has been written about his remarkable private life. This biography provides a more comprehensive examination of Wilkes throughout his long life than has hitherto been available. Taking a thematic, rather than chronological approach it is divided into six main chapters covering family, ambition, sex, religion, class and money, which allows a much more rounded picture of Wilkes to emerge. In so doing it provides a fascinating insight, not only into one of the most intriguing characters of the Georgian period, but also into wider eighteenth-century British society and its shifting attitudes to morality, politics and gender. |
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Seite 133
... Never think on futurity , as not data enough ' , he instructed his friend . Intimations of mortality would later cause him to modify his views a little . William Rough , his first biographer and the husband of Harriet Arnold , defended ...
... Never think on futurity , as not data enough ' , he instructed his friend . Intimations of mortality would later cause him to modify his views a little . William Rough , his first biographer and the husband of Harriet Arnold , defended ...
Seite 154
... never went to Spain , so the jeu d'esprit was probably never delivered . 93 BLAdd . MSS 32951 , fol . 220. Sandwich had earlier tried to persuade Wilkes , unsuccessfully , to make common cause with the ministry in the highly political ...
... never went to Spain , so the jeu d'esprit was probably never delivered . 93 BLAdd . MSS 32951 , fol . 220. Sandwich had earlier tried to persuade Wilkes , unsuccessfully , to make common cause with the ministry in the highly political ...
Seite 237
... never exercised any branch of commerce but that of vice ; a man who is a stranger to œconomy ' . As such , he was disqualified from performing one of the chamberlain's principal functions : ' the preservation of the morals of the rising ...
... never exercised any branch of commerce but that of vice ; a man who is a stranger to œconomy ' . As such , he was disqualified from performing one of the chamberlain's principal functions : ' the preservation of the morals of the rising ...
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