Before you leave...
Take 20% off your first order
20% off
Enter the code below at checkout to get 20% off your first order
The Social Life of a Georgian Novelist: Elizabeth Hervey and Her Journals (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781036156350)
Vendor:
Dianne Barre
Product type:
Books
- $44.95
$44.95- $44.95
- Unit price
- per
Subtotal:
$44.95
Description
xA window into late Georgian society, Elizabeth Hervey's journals reveal a novelist's social world, family, health, and finances.
Stored away and forgotten for 200 years, the private journals of Elizabeth Hervey (1749-1820) vividly describe her life and times. Her teenage years were spent in luxury at Fonthill Splendens, home of her stepfather, Alderman William Beckford. She married a handsome army officer who turned out to be a gambler, and with him fled abroad to escape his creditors. Soon widowed and with two small children, she returned to England, and after a brief affair with a political radical poet, settled in London. Intelligent, independent and well-educated, Herveybecame associated with Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill set and the Bluestockings. Every day she wrote her journal, vividly describing theatre visits, family dramas, servants, friends, society gossip, politics, her visits to country houses and lengthy tours at home and abroad. As a novelist she was first published in 1788, launching a career that, while earning her a living, put strain on her relationship with her half-brother, William Beckford, author of the classic gothic novel Vathek and builder of the infamous Fonthill Abbey. Theirs was a complex relationship, marred by literary rivalry, and after a quarrel in 1798 they never met again.
Over the years Hervey's social network widened to include Lord Byron, Richard and Maria Cosway, the Duchess of Devonshire, Eva Garrick, Lady Hamilton and Sarah Siddons. Yet just as vivid in her journals are her accounts of her household servants, her relationship with her sons, her problems with ill health (and drastic remedies) and her financial ups and downs. As a lively and entertaining window into late Georgian society, there are few sources to rival Elizabeth Hervey's journals.
Author: Dianne Barre
ISBN-10: 1036156354
ISBN-13: 9781036156350
Publisher: Fonthill Media
Language: English
Published: 08/15/2026
Pages: 240
Format: Hardcover
Stored away and forgotten for 200 years, the private journals of Elizabeth Hervey (1749-1820) vividly describe her life and times. Her teenage years were spent in luxury at Fonthill Splendens, home of her stepfather, Alderman William Beckford. She married a handsome army officer who turned out to be a gambler, and with him fled abroad to escape his creditors. Soon widowed and with two small children, she returned to England, and after a brief affair with a political radical poet, settled in London. Intelligent, independent and well-educated, Herveybecame associated with Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill set and the Bluestockings. Every day she wrote her journal, vividly describing theatre visits, family dramas, servants, friends, society gossip, politics, her visits to country houses and lengthy tours at home and abroad. As a novelist she was first published in 1788, launching a career that, while earning her a living, put strain on her relationship with her half-brother, William Beckford, author of the classic gothic novel Vathek and builder of the infamous Fonthill Abbey. Theirs was a complex relationship, marred by literary rivalry, and after a quarrel in 1798 they never met again.
Over the years Hervey's social network widened to include Lord Byron, Richard and Maria Cosway, the Duchess of Devonshire, Eva Garrick, Lady Hamilton and Sarah Siddons. Yet just as vivid in her journals are her accounts of her household servants, her relationship with her sons, her problems with ill health (and drastic remedies) and her financial ups and downs. As a lively and entertaining window into late Georgian society, there are few sources to rival Elizabeth Hervey's journals.
Author: Dianne Barre
ISBN-10: 1036156354
ISBN-13: 9781036156350
Publisher: Fonthill Media
Language: English
Published: 08/15/2026
Pages: 240
Format: Hardcover
Recently Viewed Products
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.