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… figure in the formation and articulation of sociable ideals. However, while he prided himself on his capacity for friendship, his own relationship to the social expectations of his time was far from comfortable. A disabled Catholic, … understood by his contemporaries. People > Art and Literature Keywords Catholicism Celebrity Correspondence Enmity Friendship Poetry Both in financial terms and in the scale of his cultural influence, Alexander Pope was one of the most … On one hand, he articulated and helped to shape the key sociable tenets of his age. He advocated for virtuous, moral friendship as a guiding principle in public life, and was heavily invested in presenting himself to the world as someone …

… Far from following the script of the lone Romantic genius, Percy Shelley (1792-1822) purposely cultivated numerous friendships with the most talented writers of his time. In his preface to Prometheus Unbound , Shelley even endeavoured … many circles, in Marlow, London (in Hunt’s ‘Cockney school’) and in Pisa, Shelley also formed intense and durable friendships, the most famous being his creative but strained connection with Lord Byron. More recently, new scholarship … reciprocal literary relationship with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, his second wife. People > Art and Literature Keywords Friendship Italy Poetry Romanticism ‘A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude …

… was a fundamental virtue. It could manifest as anything from the most ephemeral worldliness to lifelong, intimate friendships. Voltaire was one who courted high society and gave sumptuous receptions, but the ties with those he called friend would remain sacred throughout his life. People > Association Keywords Celebrity Correspondence Friendship Networks Patronage Voltaire styled himself the ‘hermit of the Alps’ 1  in much of the correspondence he … It would prove a decisive experience for Voltaire, conditioning his regard for sociability, and more particularly, for friendship and worldliness. Indeed, Voltaire befriended a number of high-born figures at Louis-le-Grand, such as the …

… his lifetime, his close circle of friends in England strove to defend his genius and preserve his memory for posterity. Friendship was always central to Keats’s life; his poetry and letters attest to a vitally social existence, and to the … London literary coteries on his development as a poet and thinker. People > Art and Literature Keywords Correspondence Friendship Nature Poetry Politics Romanticism ‘The web of our Life is of mingled Yarn,’ writes John Keats (1795-1821), … and to see his poetry as both informed by and invested in the politically as well as aesthetically inflected notions of friendship and sociability circulating in literary coteries of the time. 2 . See, for example, the recent collection of …

… print trade. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Defoe’s sociability relied much less on interpersonal ties of family, friendship, religion or civic obligation. Instead, he constructed many different ‘virtual’ identities through his … twenty-first century than that of his own day. People > Art and Literature People > Association Keywords Dissent Fiction Friendship Tories Satire Whigs Daniel Defoe (c. 1660-1731) had many social connections but he did not have many friends. … as it were, offers one of the few examples where the author can be observed attempting to cultivate an enduring bond of friendship along the lines of those that characterised political sociability after the Glorious Revolution. The …

… one Whig faction, yet with foundations in the literary world, it became a hub of patronage along lines of intellectual friendship rather than kinship, an informal venue of political opposition, and a prototype for Dr Johnson’s Club, among many others. People > Association Practices > Associational culture Practices > Politics & Society Keywords Friendship Merchants Patronage Whigs The Kit-Cat Club (c.1690s-c.1720) was one of the earliest and most influential … one Whig faction, yet with foundations in the literary world, it became a hub of patronage along lines of intellectual friendship rather than kinship, an informal venue of political opposition, and a prototype for Dr Johnson ’s Club, among …

… that was philanthropic and religious. People > Politics Keywords Abolition Activism Benevolence Charity Evangelicalism Friendship Philanthropy Religion Slavery William Wilberforce has gone down in history as the powerful voice of abolition … the interplay between moral sentiments – sympathy in particular – and kinship during his formative years. 2  A friendship ethos informed his relationship with some of the members of his family, as shown by a letter to his daughter … whom William Pitt, who played a decisive part in his philanthropic activism. As recognized by Anna Maria Wilberforce, ‘Friendship is often the means by which influence is gained, and Wilberforce's friendship with Pitt (…) was no doubt the …