Perdita

by Paula Byrne

  Mary had many literary friends and seemed to enjoy the eighteenth-century equivalent of the French salon: dinners, readings, philosophical debates. Is such support important to a writer and is there a twenty-first-century equivalent to the salon?

  I think writing is often a very isolating occupation (as is motherhood). Although it is essential to spend much of our time alone with the word-processor, I do think that companionship, conviviality, and the exchange of ideas are important and desirable for a writer. I’m not sure, alas, that there is a twenty-first-century equivalent to the salon, although the rise of reading groups is a step in the right direction. I’ve often thought that I should open a gentlewoman’s club, where women can discuss high art and have their toenails painted.

  The work of Mary’s literary friends, such as Wordsworth and Coleridge, has stood the test of time better than hers: why do you think that is?

  There are many reasons. In part, the longevity of Wordsworth and the rise of the second wave of Romantics (Keats, Shelley, and Byron) usurped the first lot. As Mary’s gothic and sentimental strain fell out of fashion in the nineteenth century, her works fell into obscurity. Some of her poetry, I think, was a little too racy for the Victorians. More generally, Mary Robinson was the victim of a culture that suppressed and neglected the work of women writers. One of the most worthy aspects of the feminist movement has been the reclamation of neglected women writers. It is gratifying to find that there is a resurgence of interest in Mary Robinson as an important radical writer and poet – especially in the United States.

  ‘I would not have liked to be a writer in Mary’s era, where female writers had a particularly difficult time, and where the conditions were so poor, and the literary marketplace so precarious.’

  Is there any book that you wish you had written?

  Yes. One of my Christmas presents from my husband was The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe by Sarah Churchwell. It’s a fascinating, intelligent meta-biography, which disentangles myth from fact, and examines our cultural attitudes to the often paradoxical and contradictory stories of Monroe’s life promulgated by a variety of writers – from biographers to playwrights to novelists. It is the book I always wanted to write about Monroe.

  What are you writing now?

  A story about high society, scandal and literature in the 1920s and 30s.

  LIFE at a Glance

  BORN

  Birkenhead, 1967.

  EDUCATED

  University of Liverpool.

  CAREER

  Schoolteacher, lecturer, writer.

  PREVIOUS WORKS

  Jane Austen and the Theatre (2002).

  FAMILY

  Married to critic and Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate, with two children, Tom (6) and Ellie (4).

  LIVES

  In a village in Warwickshire.

  Top Ten Books

  1. Pride and Prejudice

  Jane Austen

  2. Tender is the Night

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  3. Brideshead Revisited

  Evelyn Waugh

  4. Life in a Cold Climate. Nancy Mitford: A Portrait of a Contradictory Woman

  Laura Thompson

  5. The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century

  John Brewer

  6. The Portrait of a Lady

  Henry James

  7. Anna Karenina

  Leo Tolstoy

  8. The Complete Works of Shakespeare

  9. The Jeeves and Wooster books

  P. G. Wodehouse

  10. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

  J. K. Rowling

  About the Book

  Celebrity

  by Paula Byrne

  THE WRITER H. L. Mencken observed in the 1920s that ‘a Celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn’t know’. For the poet Emily Dickinson, ‘Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent’. Today, we are saturated by celebrity culture, so much so that an editor of a certain Sunday broadsheet has banned the very word from his newspaper. Would he be surprised to learn that the word, far from being a modern phenomenon, was in vogue over two hundred years ago?

  The term ‘celebrity’ first gained currency in the eighteenth century, in an era when heroes and heroines were no longer saints or remote historical figures, but were instantly recognizable icons of a newer, brasher climate. Fame and renown were made instantaneous, as never before, by a rapidly expanding print industry. The proliferation of newspapers, journals and periodicals, combined with the dissemination of prints and satirical caricatures, fuelled an insatiable public curiosity about the lives of the rich and famous. Then, as now, press gossip concerned itself with salacious details of the private lives of stars – whether actresses, politicians, royal mistresses or war heroes. All of them helped to sell newspapers.

  Many biographers claim that their subject was the very first ‘celebrity’. Perhaps the strongest case can be made for the eighteenth-century actor David Garrick – the man who transformed the theatre world, acting on stage with unprecedented naturalism, producing behind the scenes with prodigious energy, and above all conferring on his profession a respectability it had never had before. As one of his recent biographers has suggested, Garrick was the first international ‘megastar’. After his debut in Richard III, he became a star almost overnight. His friend Dr Johnson said that no actor before Garrick made so much money, or achieved such an eminent position in society.

  ‘The term “celebrity” first gained currency in the eighteenth century.’

  Garrick had a genius for self-publicity. He owned shares in various newspapers and his friendships with journalists and newspaper editors ensured favourable reviews and publicity for his plays. When Garrick put on his Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769, he mounted an extensive publicity campaign and thousands of people attended the three-day festival, despite the inclement weather. Remarkably, Garrick’s celebrity lasted throughout his lifetime. Famous not only for his multi-faceted theatrical talents, he became a national and international icon for his deification of Shakespeare. ‘King David’ received the ultimate accolade when he was buried at Westminster Abbey.

  Undoubtedly, Garrick paved the way for other star actors. Without his support and patronage, it is unlikely that Mary Robinson would ever have become a celebrated actress. Unlike her mentor, whose personal life was exemplary, Mary became famous as much for her spectacular love affairs, as for her talent on stage. But what she shared with Garrick was an extraordinary ability to sustain the public’s interest over a number of years. As my book suggests, she achieved this through her unique skill for re-inventing herself. When her paralysis ended her career as a fashion icon and society beauty, she achieved a remarkable transformation by refashioning herself as a radical writer, feminist and poet. When her first novel, Vancenza, was published, it sold out in just one day.

  ‘Fame and renown were made instantaneous, as never before, by a rapidly expanding print industry.’

  In later life, Mary became a commentator on the phenomenon of celebrity. Perhaps few understood the ephemeral nature of fame, and the fickleness of fortune, as well as she did. She often expressed her bewilderment at the fact that, at the height of her affair with the Prince of Wales, she received such frightening and unprecedented attention. She described her own celebrity as a ‘national absurdity’: ‘I am well assured, that were a being possessed of more than human endowments to visit this country, it would experience indifference, if not total neglect, while a less worthy mortal might be worshipped as the idol of its day, if whispered into notoriety by the comments of the multitude.’

  Another acclaimed actress of the late Georgian stage, Fanny Kemble, had an equally queasy relationship with fame. She was ever mindful of the vast discrepancy between the adulation of thousands and the isolation of the actress after the applause has ended. In her published journals, Records of a Girlhood, she reflected on the phenomenon of celebrity having witnessed, at f
irst-hand, its impact on her aunt, the legendary Sarah Siddons:

  What a price she had paid for her great celebrity! – weariness, vacuity, and utter deadness of spirit. The cup has been so highly flavoured that life is absolutely without savour or sweetness to her now, nothing but tasteless insipidity. She had stood on a pinnacle till all things have come to look flat and dreary … Poor woman! What a fate to be condemned to, and yet how she had been envied as well as admired.

  ‘Mary became famous as much for her spectacular love affairs, as for her talent on stage.’

  After Mary Robinson’s death, another ‘Romantic’ poet achieved international celebrity status. Lord Byron (often described as the first modern celebrity) generated ‘Byromania’ after the publication of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage in 1812. ‘I awoke one morning and found myself famous,’ he later said. Two years later, The Corsair sold 10,000 copies on the first day of publication. As well as being a poet of genius, Byron was revered for his smouldering good looks, his dangerous charisma and his reckless love life. ‘An international heart throb’ is how his most recent biographer describes him. Byron received fan mail, and groupies flocked to his home to catch a glimpse of him. In his thirty-six years, he was painted forty times. Dieting constantly, and suffering from eating disorders, he was highly conscious of his self-image. He was desperate for fame. When Lady Blessington first met him she wrote: ‘Byron had so unquenchable a thirst for celebrity, that no means were left untried that might attain it … there was no sort of celebrity he did not, at some period or other, condescend to seek, and he was not over nice in the means, provided he attained the end.’

  As with his predecessor, Mary Robinson, the life overshadowed the poetry. His early death cemented his reputation as an icon. Byron was the original James Dean, who lived fast and died young.

  ‘Perhaps few understood the ephemeral nature of fame, and the fickleness of fortune, as well as she did.’

  Garrick, Perdita and Byron were perhaps the first artistic celebrities of the modern age. But the big difference between then and now is that they possessed enormous talent: one wonders what would they make of our continuing fascination with celebrity, with its new emphasis on fame for its own sake, where people are famous merely for being famous.

  Read On

  Have You Read?

  Jane Austen and the Theatre

  Paula Byrne

  Anyone reading Mansfield Park might understand that Jane Austen hated the theatre. But in this engaging and illuminating study Paula Byrne shows how indebted the author of Pride and Prejudice was to the drama and dialogue of eighteenth-century plays. In Austen’s life theatre was the favourite form of entertainment, as popular as cinema is in the twenty-first century, and the author would go as often as possible, following the careers of actors and playwrights. Far from disliking it, it was one of her favourite pastimes and Byrne sets out to show how Austen’s novels were positively influenced by the experience.

  ‘This scholarly, perceptive book leaves you wanting more’

  LORAINE FLETCHER, Independent

  If You Loved This, You Might Like …

  Other recent biographies of Mary Robinson

  Perdita

  Sarah Gristwood

  The Prince’s Mistress: A Life of Mary Robinson

  Hester Davenport

  Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

  Amanda Foreman

  Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire was an icon of the late eighteenth century. Born Lady Georgiana Spencer, she married the Fifth Duke of Devonshire in 1774; soon she had become the undisputed queen of fashionable society, adored by the Prince Regent, an intimate of Marie-Antoinette, an influential Whig hostess and a darling of the common people. Yet for all her aura of public glamour, Georgiana’s personal life was fraught with suffering brought on by her compulsive gambling, which led to insurmountable debts and ignominy, and her search for love, which caused misery and exile. In this compelling and charismatic portrait, the story of one of the most flamboyant and influential women of the late eighteenth century is laid bare in all its glory and scandal.

  Courtesans

  Katie Hickman

  During the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a small group of women rose from impoverished obscurity to positions of great power, independence and wealth. In doing so they took control of their lives – and those of other people. Men ruined themselves in attempts to gain and retain a courtesan’s favours, but she was courted for far more than sex. In an age in which women were generally not well-educated she was often unusually literate and literary and to be seen in public with one of the great courtesans was a much-envied achievement. Katie Hickman, author of the bestselling Daughters of Britannia, focuses on the exceptional stories of five women. Sophia Baddeley, Elizabeth Armistead, Harriette Wilson, Cora Pearl and Catherine Walters had very different personalities and talents, but their lives exemplify the dazzling existence of the courtesan.

  Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1750–1832

  Stella Tillyard

  Stella Tillyard’s much-praised biography tells the story of the four Lennox sisters, Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah. Great-grandchildren of Charles II, their lives were scandalous, tumultuous and high-profile but Tillyard also shows, through letters, diaries and household accounts, what everyday life, as well as that of a public figure, was like in the eighteenth century.

  Jane Austen: A Life

  Claire Tomalin

  A radical reassessment of the life and work of Jane Austen, Claire Tomalin’s biography draws a very different picture of the stable and civil Austen world that readers have been led to expect.

  The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft

  Claire Tomalin

  One of Mary Robinson’s great friends but also one of the most famous radicals of the eighteenth century, Mary Wollstonecraft was a controversial and courageous woman and writer. The author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, still a much-read and critiqued text, she spent time in revolutionary France, married William Godwin and gave birth to the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley. Claire Tomalin’s biography, originally published in 1974, is intelligent, complex and readable.

  Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs: The Memoirs of the Reigning Courtesan of Regency London

  Harriette Wilson (ed. Lesley Blanch)

  Harriette Wilson’s patrons included the Duke of Wellington, Lord Byron and many of the most important men of Regency London. Written when her time as a fashionable courtesan was at an end she, like Mary Robinson, needed the money and told her lovers that she would edit them out, for a fee. Many declined and this intimate and unbridled memoir offers a unique insight into the demi-monde of the courtesan and her coterie.

  Find Out More

  PLACES TO VISIT

  WALLACE COLLECTION, Hertford House, Manchester Square, London, England. A relatively unknown but unmissable gem of a museum, the Wallace Collection includes three of the most famous portraits of Mary Robinson. It is also crammed with paintings by Boucher, Rembrandt, Fragonard and Titian as well as decorative arts and armour.

  WADDESDON MANOR, Waddesdon, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England. This magnificent sixteenth-century-style chateau was completed in 1889. Created by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, it is the only surviving house built in ‘le style Rothschild’ and both the grounds and the house are worth visiting. The collections include several portraits of Mary Robinson, several portraits by Gainsborough and Reynolds as well as paintings by seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish masters.

  www.waddesdon.org.uk

  LONDON WALKS

  Learn more about the geography and history of Mary Robinson’s world on one of these entertaining and intelligent walking tours. Walks include Scandalous St John’s Wood: Mistresses, Mansions, Artists, Courtesans, and Cricket; Jane Austen’s London; and Old Mayfair.

  The Original London Walks

  PO Box 1708

  London NW6 4LW

  www.walks.com


  OTHER WRITERS

  The works of Coleridge, Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Wordsworth and William Godwin will all provide more insight into the world of Mary Robinson.

  EPILOGUE

  Poor dear Mrs Robinson! you have heard of her Death … O Poole! That that Woman had but been married to a noble Being, what a noble Being she herself would have been. Latterly, she felt this with a poignant anguish. – Well! –

  O’er her pil’d grave the gale of evening sighs;

  And flowers will grow upon its grassy Slope.

  I wipe the dimming Water from mine eyes –

  Ev’n in the cold Grave dwells the Cherub Hope!

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Thomas Poole,

  February 1801

  As an AUTHORESS, few, if any, have risen higher in literary fame; or have maintained a more solid and permanent reputation than the distinguished PERDITA. Her talents were not limited, and the wide and extensive range she took in the field of literature, not only astonished the most acute; delighted the refined and elegant; but extorted approbation from the rigid and scrutinizing critic.