Horace Walpole

One of the many novels which RNC chose to dignify by quotations to head her chapters, this seems to make a particular attempt to impress. Those quoted imply considerable learning, even if (as seems likely)...

AD 's mastery of Latin and her respectable knowledge of Greek were self-acquired, though Horace Walpole had a hand in her education. She studied sculpture from childhood, being taught by Giuseppe Ceracchi , John Bacon

She was an ornament of high society and sought out literary friends. She was, for instance, a long-term friend and correspondent of Horace Walpole , who published her writings on his private press at Strawberry Hill

Walpole , son of the Prime Minister, had an ample allowance, as the middle-class Gray did not. Walpole was a socialite who delighted in the pleasures of Italy, and Gray felt neglected. Their subsequent estrangement...

She was a well-known figure in London cultural circles, particularly that of the Bluestockings. Charles Burney called her at-home evenings blue conversazioni's and Horace Walpole called them quite Mazarine-blue. Others specifically mentioned in...

The literary society of ALB 's time was, as biographer Betsy Rodgers notes, small and intimate. Writers all knew each other and kept in touch; those who did not live in London visited frequently...

Her later friendships often blended the personal with the political, like those with Beilby Porteus (Bishop of London from 1787, where she met him) and the abolitionists William Wilberforce (met at Bath the same year)...

AD 's wide circle of friends included Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire , Lady Melbourne , Joanna Baillie , Sarah Siddons , the Berrysisters , the dramatist Lady Elizabeth Craven (formerly Berkeley, later Margravine of Anspach)

FB 's friendship with Woffington led to her meeting Peg's sister Polly , who became her lifelong friend. Eight years older than Brooke, Polly Woffington was a close friend of Samuel Johnson , Sir Joshua Reynolds

Mary Anne was very close to her father, William Roscoe , the historian, writer, patron of the arts, abolitionist and reformer. William began his professional career as a barrister, but retired early. Soon afterwards he...

FNBA 's father, Thomas Manners , first Earl of Rutland, was one of the peers who tried Anne Boleyn for treason. He went on to hold various distinguished official positions. He died on 20 September...

It was GE 's fairly short-lived affair with Arthur Annesley, Viscount Valentia (later Earl of Mountnorris), which caused her divorce; his was the only name of a lover mentioned during her marriage—as it was in...

EFC 's supposed great-grandfather, allegedly the father of Colonel Frederick, was Theodore Baron von Neuhoff , a German military adventurer who had wide-ranging international experience before supporting the Corsican independence struggle. In April 1736 he...

Her mother, born Margaret Pigott , came from a long-established Shropshire family and probably had literary interests, since she was a member of the circle of independent-minded women formed around Sarah Scott and Lady Barbara Montagu

Elizabeth wrote years later that her mother, Lady Berkeley, born Elizabeth Drax , had in general no love for children.Horace Walpole once wrote of Lady Berkeley that there is nothing as...