British Enchanters: John Vanbrugh and the friends who staged English Baroque
British Enchanters looks at what happened after a daring new artistic movement – Baroque – came to England in the 17th century. It argues that, contrary to many historical accounts, this style was neither ‘foreign’ nor ‘Catholic’, and that its natural home was the theatre.
At the book’s centre is England’s first opera house: built in the early 1700s by the playwright and architect Sir John Vanbrugh. It charts his disastrous attempts to make a profit from Italian opera and the theatre’s later fortunes under its chief composer, George Frideric Handel. It also explores Vanbrugh’s creative network, including Addison and Steele (of Spectator fame) and the painter Sir James Thornhill.
While there have been various studies of Vanbrugh as an architect, this is the first to examine him as an English Baroque impresario, and the first to investigate why people reach for terms like ‘dramatic’ and ‘theatrical’ when describing his work. Drawing on architecture, music and painting, Annette Rubery reveals why Vanbrugh and his friends adopted the Baroque style, and how – from the country house to the coronation – they used it to change Britain forever.
The Female Rake: Peg Woffington’s Scandalous Life on the Georgian stage
The Female Rake tells of an actress’s progress from an ‘18th-century Nell Gwyn’ to a heroine of sentimental tragedy. The notorious Peg Woffington was a beauty, wit, courtesan, and one of the best-loved comic actresses of the eighteenth century. Acclaimed for playing high-born women, she also cornered the market in cross-dressed portrayals of soldiers, rakes and men of fashion. Off-stage her lovers were among the most influential figures of the age, including its most famous actor, David Garrick.
In the first biography of Peg for half a century, Annette Rubery mixes the sweat and greasepaint of Georgian Dublin theatreland with a wider perspective on the roles that bolder women in that era could choose to adopt, and charts Peg’s progress, fuelled by charisma, charm and fierce independence, out of the shame and penury of her origins into wealth, celebrity and, ultimately, myth.
Shortlisted for the 2022 Tony Lothian Prize >>
Lichfield Then & Now
Hardcover: 96 pages
Publisher: The History Press Ltd (Nov 2012)
ISBN-10: 0752461133
ISBN-13: 978-0752461137
Lichfield Then & Now pairs 45 carefully chosen photographs from archives, postcards and private collections with 45 contemporary colour versions of the same views, providing a fascinating visual chronicle of the city’s progress. Compare the old layout of Lichfield’s streets – its shop-fronts, parks and pools – with the Lichfield of today and see for yourself the subtle march of time, even in this most historic of places. Lichfield Then & Now will delight all local historians and will awaken nostalgic memories for those who used to live or work there.
Sometimes, these Then and Now books don’t work and for a variety of reasons. That is not the case with this. I’ve lived in Lichfield for over 30 years and thought that over that time had got to know this small Cathedral City very well. However, the combination of photographs and narrative has made me aware of many things that I’ve either missed or simply was unaware.