Online talk: Mary Robinson: Celebrity, a Conversation with Paula Byrne & Hilary Davidson

At the height of her fame in the 1780s, Mary Robinson was one of the most famous (and infamous) women in England. Newspapers and magazines were full of sightings of her out and about in London high society, and keenly documented her trend-setting fashion choices, as well as gossiping about her personal life. She was one of the pioneers of modern celebrity. In this talk, we trace the ways in which this daughter of a merchant came to be a leading light of London fashion, and discuss how a woman in her 20s navigated a whirlwind of media attention.

About the Speakers:
Paula Byrne is an author and biographer. Her first book was Jane Austen and the Theatre (2002), and since then she has published bestselling biographies of Jane Austen (2013), Evelyn Waugh (2009), and Mary Robinson (2005), and the tie-in book to the award-winning movie, Belle, the true story of the daughter of a slave who was brought up by the Lord Chief Justice of England in the years leading up to Abolition.

Hilary Davidson is a dress historian and curator, currently Associate Professor in the School of Graduate Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She has lectured, broadcast and taught extensively in her field including presenting on the BBC documentary Pride & Prejudice: Having a Ball (2013). Her reconstruction of Jane Austen’s pelisse led to an extensive study of British Regency dress, Dress in the Age of Jane Austen (2019) and Jane Austen’s Wardrobe (2023, both Yale University Press).