Under Fire: The Blitz Diaries of a Volunteer Ambulance Driver

Naomi Clifford

Books + Talks

Kitty Cochrane: Adventurer for Latin American Independence

Naomi Clifford

It is my great pleasure to host an extract of Charmian Kenner’s new book Revolutionary Partners: Sarah Andrews and British Campaigners for Latin American Independence. Charmian Kenner sets the scene: Naomi’s blog about Thomas Cochrane and Kitty Barnes told the story of a daring Scottish naval captain and his young bride, who eloped in 1812. […]

A new book on Vauxhall Gardens by David E. Coke

Naomi Clifford

If you have loved Bridgerton, Vanity Fair, Sanditon and the many other books and TV series to feature a twirl around Vauxhall Gardens you will welcome this new volume of essays by David E. Coke, a leading expert in London’s pleasure gardens of the 18th and early 19th centuries. The book follows on from Coke’s […]

5 portraits of women reading

Naomi Clifford

When I was a child in the late 1960s, my mother told me that the man upstairs had forbidden his wife to read books. Since I spent nearly every waking moment with my nose in a book, I was both incredulous and mystified. How did this poor woman put up with such a thing? Did […]

Titillation and contempt: the meaning of 18th-century caricatures of female fashion

Naomi Clifford

Having previously posted on Monstrosities of 1799 by James Gillray, I thought I would return to the subject of fashion, but this time looking specifically at how caricaturists portrayed women. It seems to me that the artists explored three main themes: the comical impracticality of particular styles, the over-revealing nature of women’s clothes and the […]

Six images of Georgian-era schools

Naomi Clifford

Education was not compulsory in Britain until 1880. Until then, there were many options, of varying quality: Dame schools, Sunday Schools, National schools, British Schools, ragged schools… And in parallel, the endowed schools such as Eton, cathedral schools, grammar schools, and commercial establishments such as the plethora of boarding schools. In accordance, here are six […]

Unvarnished truth? The unreliable autobiography of Mary Saxby

Naomi Clifford

Mary Saxby’s memoirs of life as an itinerant in late Georgian England paint a vivid picture of harassment, vulnerability and near destitution, but they were written with a particular purpose in mind – as a story of conversion of a sinful woman to evangelical nonconformist Christianity. One half of the world does not know how […]

The Legend of Margaret Catchpole

Naomi Clifford

Over two hundred years after her death, Margaret Catchpole (1762–1811) is remembered by many – for the things she was not and the things she did not do, largely because someone who never met her wrote her purported biography, which was largely a work of fiction. Ironically Margaret Catchpole’s life was extraordinary enough without this. […]

There’s Something About Darcy by Gabrielle Malcolm

Naomi Clifford

The subtitle of this book by Dr Gabrielle Malcolm, an expert in Austen’s place in popular culture and the global fan world associated with Austen, is The curious appeal of Jane Austen’s bewitching hero. How has he managed to get under our skin and why do we love him so much? If you watched TV […]