2022 Programme

This talk will consider the processes by which Eliot chose the titles and endings for her novels, especially "Middlemarch" and "The Mill on the Floss".  Rosemary Ashton is Quain Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature at UCL, and the author of many books: including two studies of Anglo-German cultural relations;  biographies on G.H.Lewes, George Eliot, Coleridge, and Thomas and Jane Carlyle; and three group studies  of 19th century cultural life namely "142, Strand: a Radical Address in Victorian London" (2006) "Victorian Bloomsbury" (2012 ) and "One Hot Summer: Dickens, Darwin, and Disraeli and The Great Stink of 1858" (2017) George Eliot is her favourite author.

Vespasiano da Bisticci was “the king of the world’s booksellers.” Born in humble circumstances in Florence in 1422, he became the biggest manuscript dealer and merchant of knowledge in fifteenth-century Europe. His clients included kings, popes and princes, as well as three generations of the Medici. He created magnificent libraries for his clients and disseminated the wisdom of the ancients, in manuscripts that were works of art, and decorated by the cream of Florentine artists. As he reached the height of his powers, a new invention appeared, the printing press, which would forever change the way knowledge was spread. Dr. Ross King is the author of many award-winning books on Italian and French art, architecture and history, including "Brunelleschi’s Dome", "Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling", "Leonardo and The Last Supper", and "The Bookseller of Florence".

Close to the probable anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth and death, this talk will explore the lives and legacies of the iconoclastic women who re-imagined Shakespeare’s heroines for the 19th century stage. Whether as idols of domestic virtue or inspiration for the suffragettes, Shakespeare’s women became the centre of the debate about women’s role. Dr Sophie Duncan is Fellow in English at Christ Church.  Her books include "Shakespeare’s Women"  and "The Fin de Siecle" (OUP 2016)  She works regularly as a consultant for theatre, radio, and television.

Chaucer’s immortal character the Wife of Bath is the starting point for a ‘biography’ of the character from antiquity to modern times.   This talk will explore both the roles of medieval women and gender in history.   Marion Turner is a Fellow of Jesus College and Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford.  Her biography "Chaucer: a European Life" (Princeton 2019) was named Book of the Year in 2019 by The Times, The Sunday Times, and The Times Literary Supplement.  She has broadcast extensively on both TV and BBC Radio.

Peter Kemp is a former drama critic  for The Independent and was Fiction Editor of the Sunday Times from 1994-2010.  His new book is 'Metroland' a history of fiction in English over the last 50 years, to be published by Yale University Press in 2023.  He is evangelical about the novels of the legendary Edith Wharton, such as ‘"The Age of Innocence" and "The Custom of the Country", which he regards as long overdue a revival. 

In this talk, David Grylls will examine a novel widely considered to be a masterpiece of American fiction and assess its enduring and controversial cultural significance. Dr Grylls, a Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford, who has published extensively on the 19th century novel, is a well-known critic and reviewer.