The Pleasures of the Imagination by John Brewer

The Pleasures of the Imagination by John Brewer

Brewer’s classic volume transforms our view of England in the 18th century as comprehensively as Simon Schama’s The Embarrassment of Riches did of the Netherlands of the 17th century. This book examines the birth and development of English ‘high culture’ in the 18th century. It charts the growth of a literary and artistic world fostered by publishers, theatrical and musical impresarios, picture dealers and auctioneers and presented to the public in coffee-houses, concert halls, libraries, theatres and pleasure gardens. Its purpose is to show how literature, painting, music and the theatre were communicated to a public increasinly avid for them. The towering figures of the time are here – Johnson, Reynolds, Garrick and Handel – but also lesser known figures such as Thomas Bewick the Newcastle engraver and the Lichfield literary bluestocking Anna Seward. Brewer explores the alleys and garrets of Grub Street, rummages the shelves of bookshops and libraries, peers through printsellers’ shop windows and slips behind the scenes at Drury Lane. It reveals a picture of English artistic and literary life which is more surprising, more various and more convincing than any we have seen before.

‘If you want to understand how English culture reinvented itself in the 18th century, read The Pleasures of the Imagination … Like all really original achievements it makes us sharply rethink things we supposed we knew well, but it does so with humour and humanity, and through the text runs Brewer’s remarkable intellect – forceful, lucid and penetrating’
SIMON SCHAMA

John Brewer is Professor of History in the Department of History and Civilization at the European University Institute, Florence. His previous book, The Sinews of Power, brought about a radical rethinking of the relationship between finance and the English state in the 18th century.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780002555371
ISBN 10	0002555379
Title	The Pleasures of the Imagination
Author	John Brewer
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	HarperCollins Publishers
Year published	1997-05-22
Number of pages	752
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.