Fame and Fortune: Sir John Hill and London Life in the 1750s

Description

This multi-disciplinary essay collection explores the controversial life and achievements of Sir John Hill (1714–1775), a prolific contributor to Georgian England’s literature, medicine and science. By the time he died, he had been knighted by the Swedish monarch and become a household name among scientists and writers throughout Britain and Europe. In 1750s London he was a celebrity, but he was also widely vilified. Hill, an important writer of urban space, also helped define London through his periodicals and fictions. As well as examining his significance and achievements, this book makes Hill a means of exploring the lively intellectual and public world of London in the 1750s where rivalries abounded, and where clubs, societies, coffee-houses, theatres and pleasure gardens shaped fame and fortunes. By investigating one individual’s intersections with his metropolis, Fame and Fortune restores Hill to view and contributes new understandings of the forms and functions of eighteenth-century intellectual worlds. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxiii Introduction (Clare Brant, George Rousseau)....Pages 1-29 Front Matter ....Pages 31-31 The Biographer’s Tale: Second Thoughts About ‘Filter Hill’ (George Rousseau)....Pages 33-61 The Propagation of Lives: Sir John Who? (Clare Brant)....Pages 63-84 Sir John Hill and Friendship (Emrys D. Jones)....Pages 85-103 Front Matter ....Pages 105-105 John Hill and Mary Cooper: A Case Study in Eighteenth-Century Publishing (Beverly Schneller)....Pages 107-120 ‘The Ravished Organs of the Attentive Audience’: John Hill and Christopher Smart (Min Wild)....Pages 121-135 ‘Unassisted Hill’: Churchill’s Satire and the Fate of the Virtuoso (Adam Rounce)....Pages 137-152 John Hill and His Erotic Satires (Julie Peakman)....Pages 153-169 Front Matter ....Pages 171-171 The Doctor as Man of Letters: Mid-Georgian Transformations (George Rousseau)....Pages 173-194 Coffeehouse Sociability, Science and Public Life in John Hill’s ‘The Inspector’ (Markman Ellis)....Pages 195-217 The Inspector at Large: Investigating the Spaces of London (Chris Ewers)....Pages 219-239 Front Matter ....Pages 241-241 A Dwarf on Giant’s Shoulders: Sir John Hill and Geology (Christopher J. Duffin)....Pages 243-265 Sir John Hill as Botanist: The Vegetable System (Brent Elliott)....Pages 267-290 John Hill, Exotic Botany and the Competitive World of Eighteenth-Century Horticulture (Sarah Easterby-Smith)....Pages 291-313 Back Matter ....Pages 315-350