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Richard Brinsley Sheridan [ Art and Literature / Politics / Association ]

… October 1751, Dublin, Ireland – 7 July 1816, London, England) was an Irish-born British playwright, poet, politician, 'clubbable' orator and owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He is known for his plays such as  The Rivals (1775 ),   The School for Scandal … Stafford (1780–1806), Westminster (1806–1807), and Ilchester (1807–1812). He was a member of Samuel Johnson’s exclusive Literary Club as well as Brooks's Club, the fashionable 'Whig fraternity'. People > Art and Literature People > Politics …

Kit-Cat Club [ Association / Associational culture / Politics & Society ]

… Abstract The Kit-Cat Club (c.1690s-c.1720) was one of the earliest and most influential London gentlemen’s dining clubs. It kickstarted the English craze for eighteenth … membership into a social credential. With members drawn exclusively from 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 …

Hell-fire Clubs [ Clubs & Societies / Association ]

… Abstract The eighteenth century saw a proliferation of so-called Hell-fire Clubs, the members of which were invariably accused by society of promoting heavy drinking, sexual license, blasphemy, … Fielding, in his Covent Garden Journal , later described the club members as a ‘set of infernal spirits’ and referred to literary accounts saying: ‘some of the members, it is said, [...] openly propagated Atheism, Deism, Immorality, …

Scriblerus Club [ Clubs & Societies / Associational culture ]

… Abstract The Scriblerus Club lasted only for less than a year, starting in the spring of 1714, and ending in November of that same year, but the … did not immediately generate a lot of creative material, the same spirit can be found expressed in some of the enduring literary masterpieces of the early eighteenth century, and powerfully shapes our own understanding of some of the main …

Drury Lane [ Sports & Leisure / Cities ]

… Abstract At London’s Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, sociability practices were realized, queried and transformed by actors and audiences. This … as riots. The name ‘Drury Lane’ also became an important cultural marker of an aspirational, genteel, and performative literary sociability outside the institution, in theatrical discourse across various media from newspapers to novels. … imitate theatrical celebrities. 28  ‘Spouting companions’ catered to amateur actors belonging to tavern-based spouting clubs who desired to reproduce actors’ famous speeches and attitudes, often with the directive ‘as performed at Drury …