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Court Lady And Country Wife
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Book Synopsis Court Lady and Country Wife by : Lita-Rose Betcherman
Download or read book Court Lady and Country Wife written by Lita-Rose Betcherman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2005-10-04 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dual portrait of aristocratic sisters Lucy and Dorothy Percy traces their births during the reign of Elizabeth I and rise to prominence at the court of Charles I in the 1630s, describing how Lucy's beauty and political power played a key role in the queen's imprisonment and Dorothy's scandalous relationship with her diplomat husband.
Book Synopsis The Country Wife by : William Wycherley
Download or read book The Country Wife written by William Wycherley and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-02-13 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'He's a fool that marries, but he's a greater fool that does not marry a fool.' This bawdy, hilarious, subversive and wickedly satirical drama pokes fun at the humourless, the jealous, and the adulterous alike. It features a country wife, Margery, whose husband believes she is too naïve to cuckold him; and an anti-hero, Horner, who pretends to be impotent in order to have unrestrained access to the women keen on 'the sport'. A number of licentious and hypocritical women request Horner's services – the country wife among them. The Country Wife has provoked powerfully mixed reactions over the years. The seventeenth century libertine king Charles II saw it twice, and is said to have joined the 'dance of the cuckolds' at the end of one performance; the eighteenth century actor-playwright David Garrick declared it 'the most licentious play in the English language'; the Victorian Macaulay compared it to a skunk, because it was 'too filthy to handle and too noisome even to approach'. Twentieth century productions heralded it a Restoration masterpiece. Sexually frank, and as ready to criticise marriage as infidelity, the virtuosity, linguistic energy, brilliant wit, naughtiness and complexity of this ribald play have made it a staple of the modern stage. This student edition contains a lengthy, entirely new introduction, by leading scholar, Tiffany Stern, with a background on the author, structure, characters, genre, themes, original staging and performance history, as well as an updated bibliography and a fully annotated version of the playtext.
Book Synopsis Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos, 1670-1735 by : Cassandra Willoughby Brydges Duchess of Chandos
Download or read book Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos, 1670-1735 written by Cassandra Willoughby Brydges Duchess of Chandos and published by Boydell Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cassandra Brydges, née Willoughby (1670-1735), was a remarkable woman; through her marriage at the age of 43 to the immensely wealthy and influential James Brydges (later the first duke of Chandos), she was connected to many of the most important members of society at the time. Unusually for the period, much of her writing survives, including an extensive collection of correspondence, and it is therefore possible to gain a richer picture of her life. This book presents all the known extant letters of the duchess. They reveal a woman engaged in a very wide range of activities - from managing family and the family fortunes, investing on the stock market, socialising with a wide range of important and influential people, to matchmaking, expressing views on social conduct, painting, and researching family history. They are accompanied by an introduction, providing an overview of her life, and full notes. Professor ROSEMARY O'DAY teaches in the Department of History at the Open University.
Book Synopsis Women and Portraits in Early Modern Europe by : Andrea Pearson
Download or read book Women and Portraits in Early Modern Europe written by Andrea Pearson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As one of the first books to treat portraits of early modern women as a discrete subject, this volume considers the possibilities and limits of agency and identity for women in history and, with particular attention to gender, as categories of analysis for women's images. Its nine original essays on Italy, the Low Countries, Germany, France, and England deepen the usefulness of these analytical tools for portraiture. Among the book's broad contributions: it dispels false assumptions about agency's possibilities and limits, showing how agency can be located outside of conventional understanding, and, conversely, how it can be stretched too far. It demonstrates that agency is compatible with relational gender analysis, especially when alternative agencies such as spectatorship are taken into account. It also makes evident the importance of aesthetics for the study of identity and agency. The individual essays reveal, among other things, how portraits broadened the traditional parameters of portraiture, explored transvestism and same-sex eroticism, appropriated aspects of male portraiture to claim those values for their sitters, and, as sites for gender negotiation, resistance, and debate, invoked considerable relational anxiety. Richly layered in method, the book offers an array of provocative insights into its subject.
Book Synopsis Elizabeth's Rival by : Nicola Tallis
Download or read book Elizabeth's Rival written by Nicola Tallis and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A kinswoman to Elizabeth I, Lettice Knollys had begun the Queen’s glittering reign basking in favor and success. It was an honor that she would enjoy for two decades. However, on the morning of September 21st, 1578, Lettice made a fateful decision. When the Queen learned of it, the consequences were swift. Lettice had dared to marry without the Queen’s consent. But worse, her new husband was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the Queen’s favorite and one-time suitor.Though she would not marry him herself, Elizabeth was fiercely jealous of any woman who showed an interest in Leicester. Knowing that she would likely earn the Queen’s enmity, Lettice married Leicester in secret, leading to her permanent banishment from court. Elizabeth never forgave the new Countess for what she perceived to be a devastating betrayal, and Lettice permanently forfeited her favor. She had become not just Queen Elizabeth’s adversary. She was her rival. But the Countess’ story does not end there. Surviving the death of two husbands and navigating the courts of three very different monarchs: Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and Charles I, Lettice’s story offers an extraordinary and intimate perspective on the world she lived in.
Book Synopsis The Ashgate Research Companion to The Sidneys, 1500-1700 by : Michael G. Brennan
Download or read book The Ashgate Research Companion to The Sidneys, 1500-1700 written by Michael G. Brennan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-26 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few families have contributed as much to English history and literature-indeed, to the arts generally-as the Sidney family. This two-volume Ashgate Research Companion assesses the current state of scholarship on family members and their impact, as historical and literary figures, in the period 1500-1700. Volume 1: Lives, begins with an overview of the Sidneys and politics, providing some links to court events, entertainments, literature, and patronage. The volume gives biographies to prominent high-profile Sidney women and men, as well as sections assessing the influence of the family in the areas of the English court, international politics, patronage, religion, public entertainment, the visual arts, and music. The focus of the second volume is the literary contributions of Sir Philip Sidney; Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; Lady Mary Wroth; Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester; and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.
Book Synopsis A Year in the Life of Stuart Britain by : Andrea Zuvich
Download or read book A Year in the Life of Stuart Britain written by Andrea Zuvich and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2016-05-15 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring a year in the life of Stuart Britain
Book Synopsis Incidental Music, Part 2 by : John Eccles
Download or read book Incidental Music, Part 2 written by John Eccles and published by A-R Editions, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-07 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Eccles’s active theatrical career spanned a period of about sixteen years, though he continued to compose occasionally for the theater after his semi-retirement in 1707. During his career he wrote incidental music for more than seventy plays, writing songs that fit perfectly within their dramatic contexts and that offered carefully tailored vehicles for his singers’ talents while remaining highly accessible in tone. This edition includes music composed by Eccles for plays beginning with the letters H–P. These plays were fundamentally collaborative ventures, and multiple composers often supplied the music; thus, this edition includes all the known songs and instrumental items for each play. Plot summaries of the plays are given along with relevant dialogue cues, and the songs are given in the order in which they appear in the drama (when known).
Book Synopsis Love, Madness, and Scandal by : Johanna Luthman
Download or read book Love, Madness, and Scandal written by Johanna Luthman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life of Frances Coke Villiers, Viscountess Purbeck. A story of love, sex, and high drama set against the backdrop of a tumultuous and formative period of English history, this is also the story of an exceptional and courageous rebel against an age in which women were expected to be obedient, silent, and chaste.
Book Synopsis The Ideology of Conduct (Routledge Revivals) by : Nancy Armstrong
Download or read book The Ideology of Conduct (Routledge Revivals) written by Nancy Armstrong and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-17 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Ideology of Conduct, first published in 1987, scholars from various fields, from the medieval period to the present day, discuss literature in which the sole purpose is to instruct women in how to make themselves desirable. This collection investigates how middle-class writers who had long emulated the behaviour of the aristocracy began to criticise that behaviour by formulating an alternative object of desire. They did so without appearing to breed political controversy because it seemed to concern only the female. But writing for and about women in fact became a powerful instrument of hegemony as it introduced a whole new vocabulary for social relations, induced certain forms of economic behaviour as desirable in men and women respectively, and insured the reproduction of the nuclear family. It is argued, therefore, that the literature of conduct not only recorded but also assisted the production of our contemporary gender-based culture.
Book Synopsis The King's Concubine by : Anne O'Brien
Download or read book The King's Concubine written by Anne O'Brien and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A child born in the plague year of 1348, abandoned and raised within the oppressive walls of a convent, Alice Perrers refused to take the veil, convinced that a greater destiny awaited her. Ambitious and quick witted, she rose above her obscure beginnings to become the infamous mistress of Edward III. But always, essentially, she was alone... Early in Alice’s life, a chance meeting with royalty changes everything: Kindly Queen Philippa, deeply in love with her husband but gravely ill, chooses Alice as a lady-in-waiting. Under the queen’s watchful eye, Alice dares to speak her mind. She demands to be taken seriously. She even flirts with the dynamic, much older king. But she is torn when her vibrant spirit captures his interest...and leads her to a betrayal she never intended. In Edward’s private chambers, Alice discovers the pleasures and paradoxes of her position. She is the queen’s confidante and the king’s lover, yet she can rely only on herself. It is a divided role she was destined to play, and she vows to play it until the bitter end. Even as she is swept up in Edward’s lavish and magnificent court, amassing wealth and influence for herself, becoming an enemy of his power-hungry son John of Gaunt, and a sparring partner to resourceful diplomat William de Windsor, she anticipates the day when the political winds will turn against her. For when her detractors voice their hatred,and accusations of treason swirl around her,threatening to destroy everything she has achieved, who will stand by Alice then? Includes a readers guide
Book Synopsis Woman in All Ages and in All Countries by :
Download or read book Woman in All Ages and in All Countries written by and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Royalist Agents, Conspirators and Spies by : Geoffrey Smith
Download or read book Royalist Agents, Conspirators and Spies written by Geoffrey Smith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1640 and 1660 the British Isles witnessed a power struggle between king and parliament of a scale and intensity never witnessed, either before or since. Although often characterised as a straight fight between royalists and parliamentarians, recent scholarship has highlighted the complex and fluid nature of the conflict, showing how it was waged on a variety of fronts, military, political, cultural and religious, at local, national and international levels. In a melting pot of competing loyalties, shifting allegiances and varying military fortunes, it is hardly surprising that agents, conspirators and spies came to play key roles in shaping events and determining policies. In this groundbreaking study, the role of a fluctuating collection of loyal, resourceful and courageous royalist agents is uncovered and examined. By shifting the focus of attention from royal ministers, councillors, generals and senior courtiers to the agents, who operated several rungs lower down in the hierarchy of the king's supporters, a unique picture of the royalist cause is presented. The book depicts a world of feuds, jealousies and rivalries that divided and disorganised the leadership of the king's party, creating fluid and unpredictable conditions in which loyalties were frequently to individuals or factions rather than to any theoretical principle of allegiance to the crown. Lacking the firm directing hand of a Walsingham or Thurloe, the agents looked to patrons for protection, employment and advancement. Grounded on a wealth of primary source material, this book cuts through a fog of deceit and secrecy to expose the murky world of seventeenth-century espionage. Written in a lively yet scholarly style, it reveals much about the nature of the dynamics of the royalist cause, about the role of the activists, and why, despite a long series of political and military defeats, royalism survived. Simultaneously, the book offers fascinating accounts of the remarkable activities of a number of very colourful individuals.
Book Synopsis The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe by :
Download or read book The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-10-24 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Politics of Female Households is the first collection that seeks to integrate ladies-in-waiting into the master narrative of early modern court studies. Presenting evidence and analysis of the multifarious ways in which ‘women above stairs’ shaped the European courts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it argues for a re-assessment of their political influence. The cultural agency of ladies-in-waiting is viewed in the reflection of portraiture, pamphlets and masques: their political dealings and patronage are revealed through analysis of letters, family networks, career patterns, gift exchange and household structures, as well as their activities in the fields of intelligence-gathering and espionage. By concentrating on a previously neglected area of female agency, this collection demonstrates clearly that the political climate of Europe was often shaped outside the male-dominated institutions of government and administration. Contributors include: Helen Graham-Matheson, Hannah Leah Crummé, Katrin Keller, Vanessa de Cruz, Birgit Houben, Dries Raeymaekers, Janet Ravenscroft, Una McIlvenna, Rosalind K. Marshall, Oliver Mallick, Cynthia Fry, Nadine Akkerman, Sara J. Wolfson, Fabian Persson, and Jeroen Duindam.
Download or read book Anna of Saxony written by Ingrun Mann and published by Winged Hussar Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-23 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since her early youth at the glittering court of Dresden, Anna had been known as a difficult child and troublemaker. Servants complained about her violent outbursts, while courtiers bemoaned her general disregard for aristocratic female etiquette. Upon reaching her teenage years, the princess’ guardians decided that Saxony’s enfant terrible should leave home as quickly as possible by marrying a foreign suitor in a preferably far-away land. Enter William of Orange: handsome, charming, and heir to one of the Netherlands’ largest estates. The fact that he was also a profligate partier and lover of women was conveniently overlooked. Anna immediately fell for the Dutch bon vivant despite warnings from a few well-meaning relatives. For one, William was a Catholic, while Anna adhered to the Protestant teachings of Martin Luther, critical voices cautioned, correctly predicting future trouble for the princess in the Catholic Netherlands. Furthermore, the prince’s liege lord, the fanatical Philip II of Spain, very much disapproved of a match between his premier vassal and a “Lutheran heretic.” There was also the issue of plain Anna’s growing obsession with the roguish William; an obsession that was not reciprocated. In the end, the impetuous princess threw caution to the wind. No other than William would do for a husband, she insisted, while publicly announcing that “every vein in my body heartily loves him.”
Book Synopsis Invisible Agents by : Nadine Akkerman
Download or read book Invisible Agents written by Nadine Akkerman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-28 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It would be easy for the modern reader to conclude that women had no place in the world of early modern espionage, with a few seventeenth-century women spies identified and then relegated to the footnotes of history. If even the espionage carried out by Susan Hyde, sister of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, during the turbulent decades of civil strife in Britain can escape the historiographer's gaze, then how many more like her lurk in the archives? Nadine Akkerman's search for an answer to this question has led to the writing of Invisible Agents, the very first study to analyse the role of early modern women spies, demonstrating that the allegedly-male world of the spy was more than merely infiltrated by women. This compelling and ground-breaking contribution to the history of espionage details a series of case studies in which women - from playwright to postmistress, from lady-in-waiting to laundry woman - acted as spies, sourcing and passing on confidential information on account of political and religious convictions or to obtain money or power. The struggle of these women to construct credibility in their own time is mirrored in their invisibility in modern historiography. Akkerman has immersed herself in archives, libraries, and private collections, transcribing hundreds of letters, breaking cipher codes and their keys, studying invisible inks, and interpreting riddles, acting as a modern-day spymistress to unearth plots and conspiracies that have long remained hidden by history.
Book Synopsis A Taste for China by : Eugenia Zuroski Jenkins
Download or read book A Taste for China written by Eugenia Zuroski Jenkins and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-23 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A Taste for China' offers an account of how literature of the long eighteenth century generated a model of English selfhood dependent on figures of China. It shows how various genres of writing in this period call upon 'things Chinese' to define the tasteful English subject of modernity. Chinoiserie is no mere exotic curiosity in this culture, but a potent, multivalent sign of England's participation in a cosmopolitan world order.
