The Duchess

by Amanda Foreman

  Steuart, A. Francis, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting by Lady Charlotte Bury (London 1908)

  ———The Last Journals of Horace Walpole (London 1910)

  Surr, T. S., A Winter in London (London 1806)

  Surtees, Virginia, A Second Self: The Letters of Harriet Granville, 1810–1845 (London 1990)

  Walpole, Horace, Memoirs of the Reign of George III (London 1894)

  Wheatley, Henry, The Historical and Posthumous Memoirs of Sir Nathaniel Wraxall (London 1884)

  Wraxall, Nathaniel, Posthumous and Historical Memoirs of My Own Time (London 1904)

  Wright, J., The Speeches of the Right Honourable Charles James Fox in the House of Commons (London 1815)

  4. PAMPHLETS

  Anon., History of the Westminster Election (London 1784)

  Anon., [Combe, William,] A Letter to Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire (London 1777)

  ———A Second Letter to Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire (London 1777)

  ———The Duchess of Devonshire’s Cow; a Poem (London 1777)

  ———An Heroic Epistle to the Noble Author of the Duchess of Devonshire’s Cow, a Poem (London 1777)

  ———The Duke of Devonshire’s Bull to the Duchess of Devonshire’s Cow: a Poetical Epistle (London 1777)

  ———A Letter to Her Grace the Duchess of D. Answered cursorily, by Democritus (London 1777)

  Piggott, Charles, The Female Jockey Club (London 1794)

  ———The Whig Club (London 1792)

  B. Secondary Sources

  1. BOOKS

  Arnold, Walter, The Life and Death of the Sublime Society of Beefsteaks (London 1871)

  Ashton, John, The History of Gambling in England (London 1871)

  Askwith, Betty, Piety and Wit: Biography of Harriet, Countess Granville, 1785–1862 (London 1982)

  Aspinall, A., Politics and the Press, c. 1780–1850 (London 1949)

  Ayling, S., A Portrait of Sheridan (London 1985)

  Barker, H., and Chalus, E., Gender in Eighteenth Century England: roles, representations and responsibilities (London 1997)

  Barnes, D., George III and William Pitt (London 1939)

  Battiscombe, Georgina, The Spencers of Althorp (London 1984)

  Bayne Powell, R., The English Child in the Eighteenth Century (London 1939)

  Biddulph, Violet, The Three Ladies Waldegrave (London 1938)

  Black, J., The English Press in the Eighteenth Century (Beckenham 1987)

  Bleackely, Horace, Ladies Fair and Frail, Sketches of the Demi-monde during the Eighteenth Century (London 1926)

  ———The Beautiful Duchess (London 1927)

  Bolt, Christine, The Women’s Movements in the United States and Britain from the 1790s to the 1920s (Amherst, Mass. 1993)

  Borer, Mary Cathcart, An Illustrated Guide to London in 1800 (London 1988)

  Boucé, P., Sexuality in Eighteenth Century Britain (Manchester 1982)

  Boucé, P., and Porter, Roy, Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment (Manchester 1987)

  Bovill, E. W., English Country Life, 1780–1830 (London 1962)

  Brewer, John, and Porter, Roy, Consumption and the World of Goods (London 1993)

  Brooke, J., King George III (London 1972)

  Browne, Alice, The Eighteenth Century Feminist Mind (London 1987)

  Buck, A., Dress in Eighteenth Century England (London 1979)

  Cannon, J. A., Aristocratic Century: The Peerage of Eighteenth Century England (Cambridge 1984)

  ———The Fox–North Coalition: Crisis of the Constitution (Cambridge 1969)

  ———The Whig Ascendancy: Colloquies on Hanoverian England (London 1981)

  Cecil, Lord David, The Young Melbourne (London 1939)

  Chaloner, W. H., and Richardson, R. C., Bibliography of British Economic and Social History (Manchester 1984)

  Christie, I. R., Myth and Reality in Late-Eighteenth Century British Politics and other Papers (London 1970)

  ———The End of North’s Ministry, 1780–1782 (London 1958)

  ———Wilkes, Wyvill and Reform (London 1962)

  Colley, Linda, Britons, Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (London 1992)

  Cunnington, C. W. and P., Handbook of English Costume in the Eighteenth Century (London 1972)

  Davidoff, L., The Best Circles (London 1986)

  Davidoff, L., and Hall, C., Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850 (London 1992)

  Davis, I. M., The Harlot and the Statesman (London 1986)

  Derry, J. W., The Regency Crisis and the Whigs, 1788–9 (Cambridge 1963)

  ———Charles James Fox (New York 1972)

  ———Charles, Earl Grey (Oxford 1992)

  Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, The House: A Portrait of Chatsworth (London 1982)

  Dickinson, H. T., Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth Century Britain (London 1977)

  Duffy, M., The English Satirical Print, 1600–1832 (Cambridge 1986)

  Dunlop, Ian, Marie-Antoinette (London 1993)

  Ehrman, J., The Younger Pitt (London 1969–96)

  Elwin, Malcolm, The Noels and the Milbanks (London 1967)

  Farr, Evelyn, Before the Deluge, Parisian Society in the Reign of Louis XVI (London 1994)

  Foster, Elizabeth, Children of the Mist (London 1960)

  Fothergil, Brian, The Mitred Earl (London 1988)

  Fraser, Flora, Beloved Emma (London 1986)

  Friedman, Joseph, Spencer House: The Chronicle of a Great London Mansion (London 1993)

  Fritz, Paul, and Morton, Richard, Women in the Eighteenth Century and Other Essays (Toronto 1976)

  George, M. D., English Political Caricature to 1702: A Study of Opinion and Propaganda (Oxford 1959)

  ———Hogarth to Cruickshank: Social Change in Graphic Satire (London 1967)

  ———Johnson’s England (Oxford 1933)

  ———London Life in the Eighteenth Century (London 1992)

  Girouard, Mark, Life in the English Country House (London 1978)

  Griffiths, Arthur, Clubs and Clubmen (London 1907)

  Grosvenor, Caroline, The First Lady Wharncliffe and Her Family (London 1927)

  Harvey, A. D., Britain in the Early Nineteenth Century (London 1978)

  Hibbert, Christopher, George IV, Prince of Wales (London 1972)

  ———The French Revolution (London 1982)

  Hill, Bridget, Women, Work, and Sexual Politics in Eighteenth Century England (London 1989)

  ———Eighteenth Century Women, An Anthology (London 1978)

  Hinde, W., George Canning (London 1973)

  Hudson, Roger, The Grand Tour 1592–1796 (London 1993)

  Hufton, Olwen, The Prospect Before Her (London 1995)

  Jarret, Derek, The Begetters of Revolution (London 1973)

  Jesse, J. H., Selwyn and His Contemporaries (London 1843–4)

  Jones, L. C., The Clubs of the Georgian Rakes (New York 1942)

  Jones, Vivien, Women in the Eighteenth Century: Constructions of Femininity (London 1990)

  Jupp, P., Lord Grenville (Oxford 1985)

  Kanner, Barbara, The Women of England (Hamden, Conn. 1979)

  Kelly, Linda, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, A Life (London 1997)

  Langford, Paul, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727–1783 (Oxford 1989)

  Lees-Milne, James, The Bachelor Duke (London 1991)

  Leppert, Richard, Music and Image: Domesticity, Ideology and Socio-Cultural Formation in Eighteenth-century England (Cambridge 1988)

  Lewis, J. S., In the Family Way. Childbirth in the British Aristocracy, 1760–1860 (London 1988)

  Lonsdale, Roger, Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford 1989)

  Lumis, Trevor, and Marsh, Jan, The Woman’s Domain. Women and the English Country House (London 1990)

  Macfarlane, A., Marriage and Love in England (Oxford 1986)

  Manceron, Claude, trans. Amphoux, Nancy, The Age of the French Revolution: Toward the Brink (New York 1983)
r />   Marshall, Arthur Calder, The Two Duchesses (London 1978)

  Masters, Brian, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (London 1981)

  Mavor, E., The Ladies of Llangollen (New York 1981)

  Mckendrick, N., Brewer, J., and Plumb, J. H., The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialisation of 18th Century England (London 1982)

  Mingay, G., English Landed Society in Eighteenth Century Society (London 1963)

  Mitchell, Leslie, Charles James Fox and the Disintegration of the Whig Party (Oxford 1971)

  ———Holland House (London 1980)

  ———Charles James Fox (Oxford 1992)

  Mullan, John, Sentiment and Sociability. The Language of Feeling in the Eighteenth Century (London 1988)

  Myers, Sylvia, The Blue Stocking Circle: Women, Friendship and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth Century England (London 1990)

  Norris, J., Shelburne and Reform (London 1963)

  O’Dowd, Mary, and Wichert, Sabine, Chattel, Servant or Citizen (Belfast 1995)

  O’Gorman, F., The Whig Party and the French Revolution (London 1967)

  ———The Rise of Party in England. The Rockingham Whigs 1760–1782 (London 1975)

  ———Voters, Patrons and Parties: The Unreformed Electorate of Hanoverian England, 1734–1832 (Oxford 1989)

  Olphin, H. K., George Tierney (London 1934)

  Olson, A., The Radical Duke (Oxford 1961)

  Outhwaite, R. B., Marriage and Society: Studies in the Social History of Marriage (London 1981)

  Palmer, Iris, The Face Without a Frown (London 1944)

  Pares, Richard, George III and the Politicians (London 1953)

  Parreaux, André, Daily Life in England in the Reign of George III (London 1969)

  Pearson, John, Stags and Serpents. The Story of the House of Cavendish and the Duke of Devonshire (London 1983)

  Powis, J., Aristocracy (Oxford 1984)

  Raymond. J., A Passion for Friends: Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection (Boston 1986)

  Ribeiro, A., A Visual History of Costume: The Eighteenth Century (London 1983)

  ———Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe, 1715–1789 (London 1984)

  ———The Dress Worn at Masquerades in England, 1730–1790, and its Relation to Fancy Dress in Portraiture (London 1984)

  ———Dress and Morality (London 1986)

  Rodgers, Katharine, Feminism in the Eighteenth Century (London 1990)

  Roth, W., The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century (London 1986)

  Rudé, G., Hanoverian London 1714–1808 (London 1971)

  Sack, J. J., The Grenvillites 1801–1829, Party Politics and Factionalism in the Age of Pitt and Liverpool (Chicago 1979)

  Shapiro, Ann-Louise, ed., Feminists Revision History (New Brunswick, NJ, 1994)

  Sichel, W., Sheridan (London 1909)

  Smith, E. A., Whig Principles and Party Politics (Manchester 1975)

  ———Lord Grey, 1764–1845 (Oxford 1990)

  Steinmetz, Andrew, The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims (London 1870)

  Stokes, Hugh, The Devonshire House Circle (London 1917)

  Stone, Lawrence, Broken Lives: Separation and Divorce in England 1660–1857 (Oxford 1993)

  ———The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500–1800 (London 1979)

  ———Road to Divorce: England 1530–1987 (Oxford 1990)

  Stone, Lawrence and Fawtier, Jeanne C., An Open Elite? (Oxford 1984)

  Stuart, Dorothy, Dearest Bess (London 1955)

  Sykes, Christopher Simon, Private Palaces: Life in the Great London Houses (London 1985)

  Thomas, P. G., Lord North (London 1976)

  Thorne, R. G., The House of Commons (London 1986)

  Tillyard, Stella, Aristocrats (London 1994)

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  Whiteley, W. T., Artists and Their Friends in England 1700–1799 (London 1928)

  Wilkins, W. H., Mrs Fitzherbert and George IV (London 1905)

  Ziegler, Philip, Addington (London 1965)

  2. ARTICLES

  Alexander, Sally, “Feminist History,” History Workshop Journal, 1 (1976)

  Berkeley, Eliza, “Singular Tale of Love in High Life,” Gentleman’s Magazine, 66 (August 1796)

  Boucé, Paul Gabriel, “Aspects of Sexual Tolerance and Intolerance in Eighteenth Century England,” British Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, 3 (Autumn 1980)

  Butterfield, H., “Charles James Fox and the Whig Opposition in 1792,” Cambridge Historical Journal, 9 (1949)

  Clay, Christopher, “Marriage, Inheritance, and the Rise of Large Estates in England, 1660–1835,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 38 (1968)

  Deutsch, Phyllis, “Moral Trespass in Georgian London: Gaming, Gender, and Electoral Politics in the Age of George III,” Historical Journal, 39, 3 (1996)

  Dinwiddy, J. R., “Charles James Fox and the People,” History, 55 (1970)

  George, E., “Fox’s Martyrs: The General Election of 1784,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 21 (1937)

  Laprade, W. T., “William Pitt and the Westminster Election,” American Historical Review, 23 (1912)

  Plumb, J. H., “The new world of children in eighteenth century England,” Past and Present, 67 (May 1975)

  Vickery, Amanda, “Golden age to separate spheres? A review of the categories and chronology of English women’s history,” Historical Journal, 36, 2 (1993)

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  1. Georgiana emerged into the world with considerable poise and charm, but she was desperately needy and easily manipulated. How much can her lack of emotional balance be attributed to her mother, Lady Spencer’s, influence?

  2. The Duke of Devonshire was a shy man who had hardly known his parents. He craved affection but did not know how to receive or give it. Was his marriage to Georgiana doomed from the start?

  3. Georgiana clearly adored the attention of the press. How much of her celebrity was self-created and how much was foisted upon her because of her style and status?

  4. Lady Elizabeth Foster was considered to be so “artificial, it almost seemed natural.” Was her friendship for Georgiana pure calculation, or did she share Georgiana’s feelings?

  5. By 1782 Georgiana had become the most powerful woman in the Whig party. Do you think she wanted power for herself?

  6. After her triumph at the Westminster election in 1784, Georgiana wrote, “I hate myself.” She displayed classic symptoms of bulimia; she resorted to alcohol and drugs to find relief; and, worst of all, she became a gambling addict. Was this behavior a form of protest against her unhappy marriage, an expression of anger against a society that favored men over women, the result of childhood trauma, a demonstration of character weakness, or an amalgamation of all of these?

  7. When Fanny Burney met Georgiana she assumed that blackmail had to be at the heart of Georgiana’s continuing friendship with Bess. What kept the two women together by the 1790s?

  8. Why did the Duke of Devonshire force Georgiana into exile? Was it shame or jealousy?

  9. Was Charles Grey wrong to end his affair with Georgiana and marry her cousin?

  10. Why was Georgiana ready and willing to enter politics again in 1801?

  11. Why did Elizabeth Foster marry the Duke of Devonshire? Was it the culmination of all her plotting, or was it simply the case of two middle-aged people deciding that they should make their unofficial relationship finally official?