Hell-fire Clubs [ Clubs & Societies / Association ]
… any more reliable than the highly polemical broadsheets of Grub Street (57). While there is little evidence pointing towards orgiastic happenings at Wharton’s Hell-fire Club, a letter from Lady Mary Montagu hints at a Hell-fire-adjacent … anti-Trinitarian stance. Either way, the furore around the club died down in 1722, once Wharton turned his attention towards freemasonry. His legacy remained prominent, however, and his life became the literary prototype for multiple ‘minor Satan’ figures in literature, 9 such as the infidel Lorenzo in Edward Young’s Night Thoughts (1742-45) or the rakes in Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe (1748). 8 . The Complete …
Blasphemy | Clubs | Masculinity | Sex
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