This one’s for everyone who watched Bridgerton and wondered: could I get it in Georgian England?! Dr. Sally Holloway joins Jonathan to discuss the ins and outs of love and courtship in this era, including gifts and letters people would exchange, 18th century contraception, and the historical equivalents of ghosting and catfishing.
Dr. Sally Holloway is a historian of gender, emotions, and visual and material culture over the long 18th and nineteenth centuries, and is a Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. She is the author of The Game of Love in Georgian England: Courtship, Emotions, and Material Culture (Oxford, 2019), which will be published in paperback in June.
You can follow Dr. Holloway on Twitter @sally_holloway.
Here are some visual resources to pair with the episode:
“The Unwilling Bridegroom, or Forc’d Meat Will Never Digest”
“Sympathetic Lovers”
Eye Miniature
18th c. Sheep's Gut Condoms
The love letter from William Martin to Hannah Smith, sent on February 15, 1714, is from the Hampshire Record office in Winchester, ref. 3M51/684. You can find their contact details here.
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