Elizabeth Craven and the French Revolution

Elizabeth Craven lived in France just before the French Revolution of 1789 and visited it several times at the height of the Revolution and during the Napoleonic period. She met Napoleon, and knew many people who were closely bound up in the tumultuous events of that time.



Wherever she went she had her ear to the ground for new and important ideas, and enjoyed intellectual stimulation. If she thought ideas were extreme or absurd, she seized on them with mockery and used them in her comedies.
This is the title page of one of her most remarkable works, a play written in 1790.

To find out more about Elizabeth Craven and her writings, read:

Vernon Press - Elizabeth Craven: Writer, Feminist and European ...

https://vernonpress.com/title?id=334

23 Jun 2017 - Elizabeth Craven's fascinating life was full of travel, love-affairs and scandals but this biography, the first to appear for a century, is the only one ...

To read the full text of The Modern Philosopher in English, buy The Modern Philosopher and Other Works by Elizabeth Craven, trans and edited by Julia Gasper, Cambridge Scholars Press 2017.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Craven Family of Hamstead Marshall, Enborne, Berkshire

Image
If you go to Hamstead Marshall, near Newbury, in Berkshire, you will see a pair of enigmatic gateposts standing in the middle of what looks like open farmland. They lead nowhere, and the effect is surreal. There are seven other pairs of gateposts of similar style in the locality, giving a clue to the existence of a now-vanished house and park. In fact there have been many buildings on this site, including a mediaeval castle. The name comes from the Marshall family who owned it in the reign of Henry II. In 1550, Edward VI gave the estate to his sister, the young Princess Elizabeth.  There are some scandalous rumours that the Tudor house was a hiding-place for a secret love-child the Queen bore in her youth, but this is probably legend. Elizabeth I when a Princess   c.1546. Did she have a secret love-child  at Hampstead Marshall? After she came to the throne, the Queen gave Hamstead to  Sir Thomas Parry, formerly her bursar, who built a new reside...
Read more

The Owners of Brandenburgh House. Sir Nicholas Crispe

Image
      Brandenburgh House in Hammersmith, which eventually became Elizabeth Craven's home, dated back to Stuart times. The house was built in c.1625-6 for Sir Nicholas Crispe (1598-1666), a local merchant whose family money came from the brick-making trade. This business flourished because the area West of London was rapidly expanding during this period. Throughout his career he was a stout royalist, which brought him some gains and some severe losses. Sir Nicholas Crisp, Bt., line engraving by Robert Hartley Cromek, published 1 May 1795 by T. Cadell & W. Davies, after an unknown artist. NPG D13876        Crispe's house was in an elegant fashionable, Dutch style and built solely of bricks, with no timber structure. This was an innovation in its time. It overlooked the river, less for the purpose of a pretty view than that of transporting heavy goods by water.       In 1628 Crispe purchased most of the shares of the Guinea Compa...
Read more

Dangerous Liaisons: The Wicked Earl of Berkeley

Image
Elizabeth Craven's elder brother, Frederick, 5th Earl of Berkeley, was one of the most eligible men in England. Clever, cultivated and well-travelled, owner of vast estates that included Berkeley Square in London and an ancestral castle, he was often busy running the Gloucester militia, which played an essential role in the defence of the kingdom during the Napoleonic Wars. He loved to wear the scarlet coat that proclaimed him colonel of this militia, the coat he is wearing in this portrait painted of him as a young man by Pompeo Batoni. And what a handsome young man he is. The 5th Earl was also an infamous Georgian rake, one of the most  dastardly libertines who ever ensnared an innocent female . He could have added lustre to his family name, but instead he made it notorious for all the wrong reasons. The scandal lingered on long after his death and had immense repercussions.  He really deserves to be classed along with the Lovelaces, Valmonts, Squire Thornhills, Wil...
Read more