Evening Talk: ‘Life is a Magic Lanthorn’

‘Life is a Magic Lanthorn’: The Lives of Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi

 6.30pm drinks reception for 7.00pm talk.

Dr Sophie Coulombeau (Cardiff University)

Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi (1741-1821), whose sparkling wit impressed Dr Johnson and earned her a place at the heart of London’s fashionable literati, was also a Welsh child heiress, a long-suffering wife and mother, a political campaigner, a passionate lover, a woman of scandal, a seasoned traveller, a literary celebrity, an antiquarian, a patron, and a prophet. Despite her relative obscurity today, she was one of the most innovative, successful and notorious writers at work in eighteenth-century and Romantic Britain. This talks gives an overview of Hester Thrale Piozzi’s biographical and literary lives.

Sophie Coulombeau is a lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University, a novelist, and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker (2014). Her forthcoming project, planned with Dr. Elizabeth Edwards (University of Wales), aims to restore Thrale Piozzi to her rightful place at the forefront of eighteenth-century and Romantic literary scholarship.

Tickets: £11; Students/Friends £8.50 (includes drinks and canapés).

To book, call us on 01420 541010 or book online here (subject to Eventbrite booking fee).