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Helen Maria Williams [ Art and Literature / Travel ]

… > Travel Keywords Women Salon Letters travelogue French Revolution Girondins napoleonic era National specificities sociable spaces Helen Maria Williams (1761-1827) showed a sustained appetence for literary and political circles. She frequented … in the Letters of Rachel Charlotte Biggs and Helen Maria Williams’, in Valérie Capdeville et Pierre Labrune (eds.), Sociable Spaces in Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Material and Visual Experience , Études anglaises  (vol. 74, n° 3, …

Coffeehouses [ Institutions / Food & Drink venues ]

… Coffeehouses were key centres of sociability in eighteenth-century Britain. They played an important role both as real spaces for social interaction and as virtual places in which normative ideals of urban and polite sociability were … as the alehouse or the tavern, the rise of the coffeehouse is now best understood as the emergence of a complementary sociable institution. Places > Institutions Places > Food & Drink venues Keywords Coffee Coffeehouse Public sphere Club … famous Club in the age of George III, clubs and coffeehouses played a complementary role in satisfying the need for sociable spaces. 9 9 . Peter Clark, British Clubs and Societies 1580-1800: The Origins of an Associational World, …

Shopping [ Politics & Society ]

… urban shopping areas developed, a ‘shopping culture’, as Helen Berry phrased it, emerged, which was ‘polite’ as well as sociable. Shopping often went beyond the acquisition of necessities and was frequently practiced as a leisure activity. … > Politics & Society Keywords Fashion Luxury City Bath London Shopping Street Growing Towns and Shopping Streets Sociable shopping developed because in London as well as in spa towns such as Bath and in other smaller urban centres, … customers, shopping venues and shopping streets in particular were important for the local economy and served as spaces of sociable encounters. The Swiss traveller César de Saussure, who stayed in London in the 1720s and again a …

Luxury [ Taste & Manners ]

… saw a shift from ‘old’ to ‘new’ luxury (de Vries), from aristocratic displays of wealth and power to the widespread and sociable use of commodities like porcelain and silk. Such displays of tasteful and fashionable objects enhanced individual status, in domestic settings and in public spaces. McKendrick even claims a ‘consumer revolution’. If luxury was often coded as pernicious and immoral, some … Luxury goods were no longer only displayed by an elite but also by members of the middle class, even working people, in sociable contexts, for instance at the tea-table (china) and dances (dress), likewise in public leisure spaces. 3   …

Literary Academies [ Clubs & Societies / Associational culture ]

… Abstract Early modern literary academies were spaces of in-person and epistolary interaction and intellectual sociability. From the highly institutionalised royal … like the Crusca—may explain the relatively limited importance of salons. As academies already addressed the need for sociable practices such as discussions, there was less of an impetus for the latter to develop. The art of conversation … Italian academies, were a ‘coming together’ ( conversari: cum, versari ) in accordance with the nature of man, who was a sociable ( conversevole ) animal,’ and ‘studious leisure ( otium litteratum ) away from the hubbub of public life’ . In …

Pleasure gardens [ Sports & Leisure ]

… Abstract Pleasure gardens were a type of eighteenth-century public spaces which offered diverse forms of entertainment for their visitors. Their spatial design coincided with the growth of … Pleasure visuality entertainment Vauxhall Ranelagh Gardens Pleasure gardens were a particular type of eighteenth-century sociable spaces. Usually privately-owned, these enclosed outdoor grounds welcomed paying visitors who sought various … assembly rooms in England and France, and activities like art exhibitions. These commercial venues would also encourage sociable interactions that promoted mixing and mingling in ‘the newly inclusive arena of public’. 3  Initially, the …