Grab your dance card, we're taking you to Georgian London
Join academic, author (The Beau Monde) and historical advisor (The Favourite, Poldark, Bridgerton) Prof. Hannah Greig for a brand new course...
You’re cordially invited to a brand new course with Prof. Hannah Greig…
What was life like in the fast set of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London? The glamorous world of ‘the ton’ was synonymous with celebrity status across this period, but who were these ‘people of fashion’ and was life really one long party?
Lead by academic, author (The Beau Monde) and historical advisor (The Favourite, Poldark, Bridgerton) Prof. Hannah Greig, this four-week course looks beyond the stereotypes of Georgian high society to explore the social, cultural and political realities of celebrity and elite status. We follow the fashion leaders, the gatekeepers, the wannabes and the outsiders as they attended court, parliament and London’s famous social resorts. We will discover that, beneath the glitter and the high life, lay a reconfigured and formidable type of aristocratic society. The immense political and cultural influence wielded by these new grandees withstood the threats of revolution witnessed abroad and underpinned the longer term survival of aristocratic power in Britain.
Course fee: £40 (+booking fee)
Available globally. Follow live or at your own pace.
Professor Hannah Greig is an expert in eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century British history and highly experienced consultant to film and television dramas. She is currently an honorary Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London and has previously held posts and fellowships at the University of York; Balliol College, Oxford; The Leverhulme Trust and Yale University. Her book The Beau Monde: Fashionable Society in Eighteenth-Century London was the first academic study of ‘the ton’, the distinctive elite celebrity culture associated with Georgian London and she has published widely on this eighteenth-century phenomenon in both academic journals and popular magazines.
She is currently writing a new book about famous eighteenth-century diamonds and their infamous owners. Alongside her career in academia, Hannah works collaboratively with film and TV dramas. Her credits include the Netflix hit Bridgerton, the Oscar-winning feature film The Favourite and popular BBC and ITV dramas including Sanditon, Poldark, and Death Comes to Pemberley.