The librettist and theatre manager Alfred Bunn (1796-1860) published these memoirs of his career, giving a view 'both before and behind the curtain', in 1840. He professes not to be fond of autobiographies, is clearly irritated at the not always flattering walk-on role he is given in the memoirs of some of the greatest contemporary performers, and regards this three-volume work as a way of settling a number of scores. His account cannot therefore be said to be unprejudiced, but it is written with a verve which makes it very readable, and - allowing for bias and exaggeration - provides a...

This four-volume edition of the letters of Mrs Elizabeth Montagu (1718 1800), the 'Queen of the Bluestockings', was edited by her nephew and adopted son Matthew (1762 1831) and published in 1809 13. The daughter of wealthy parents, and well educated in history and languages, at the age of twenty-one she married Edward Montagu, a grandson of the earl of Sandwich whose income derived from northern estates and coal mines, and began to establish a London salon attended by the intellectual cream of British society, including Johnson, Burke, Garrick, Hannah More and Hester Chapone. The letters (and...

This 1932 work covers 'every person, place, book and author named in Jane Austen's novels, fragments and juvenilia'.

In this light-hearted book, the classical scholar J. P. Mahaffy (1839-1919) analyses the art of conversation.