The Digital Encyclopedia of British Sociability in the Long Eighteenth Century

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The Project

An innovative tool and an interdisciplinary approach

An open-access digital encyclopedia with a multi-modal search engine
An international and interdisciplinary project led by the GIS Sociabilités / Sociability since 2017
An EU-funded project (Horizon 2020-MSCA-RISE) since 2019, promoting staff exchange and intersectoral collaborations
A digital humanities project managed by an experienced editorial team
Encyclopedia entries written in English or French by eighteenth-century scholars in various fields (history, art history, literature, philosophy, material culture, linguistics ...) and reviewed by a dedicated committee
A complementary anthology of texts related to various aspects of sociability and connected to the entries

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Bringing academic research on eighteenth-century sociability to a wider audience

Explore the wide range of topics related to British Sociability from 1650 to 1850 and learn about the circulation of models of sociability that shaped European and colonial societies.
Discover the collaborative work between academic researchers on primary source material in their respective fields of expertise
Browse through 200 entries enriched with illustrations, hyperlinks, footnotes and further reading suggestions
Search by keywords, by alphabetical order or by categories (People, Places, Practices, Concepts, Objects) and sub-categories
Navigate easily through a dynamic and updatable resource
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Latest entries

Practices Concepts

Masquerades in London

LIPSKI Jakub

Masquerades – sociable assemblies of masked participants – developed into forms of public entertainment in eighteenth-century London, often welcoming crowds of participants in the fashionable centres of the metropolis, such as the Haymarket Theatre, Vauxhall Gardens or Ranelagh Gardens. The masquerade phenomenon provides insight into the category of personhood that was negotiated through a sociable performance of anonymity and new ‘selves’.

Lord Byron

LE PAPE Isabelle

CHARRIER-VOZEL Marianne

Cette notice explore les différents réseaux de sociabilité autour de la figure de Lord Byron dans les domaines artistique, sentimental et politique en retraçant les différentes étapes de son parcours à travers l’Europe. Depuis ses relations amicales nouées sur le sol britannique avec de jeunes prodiges de la littérature romantique (P.B Shelley, Mary Shelley…) jusqu’aux rencontres sentimentales sur les rivages vénitiens et les affinités politiques autour du combat pour l’indépendance grecque, la vie de Byron s’enrichit de réseaux tissés à l’échelle européenne.

People

William Wordsworth, the Worldly Recluse

DUPERRIER Félix

The literary career of William Wordsworth (1770-1850) spans nearly sixty years, charting not only his evolution from disaffected radical to Victorian sage, but also the events and changes that shaped his generation, and ultimately the British nation. At once a poet of the Lake District and, from 1843 onwards, the Poet Laureate, Wordsworth explored the concept of sociability on both local and national levels.

Anthology

As part of its H2020 programme (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (MSCA-RISE-2018)), the European Commission has granted significant financial support to DIGITENS, the flagship project of the Scientific Interest Grouping (GIS) “Sociabilités/Sociability”.