Controversial Jewish journalist and political lobbyist Lucien Wolf (1857 1930) co-founded the Jewish Historical Society of England in 1893, editing this work in 1901. It comprises a series of pamphlets and tracts written by Menasseh ben Israel (1604 57). An Amsterdam rabbi and founder of the city's first Hebrew publishing house, Menasseh was well regarded among non-Jewish theologians. As an advocate of messianic tradition, he sought to scatter the Jews across the world, leading him to England in the 1650s to campaign for their readmission following Edward I's edict of expulsion in 1290. The...

In eighteenth-century London, abandoned children were one of the social groups most affected by the harsh living conditions. Several charitable initiatives had endeavoured to alleviate the problem, not least the Foundling Hospital, of which Jonas Hanway (c.1712 86) was a governor. His tireless philanthropy and campaigning resulted in the 1762 Registers Bill, which required parishes to keep records of the poor children they looked after. In this tract, first published in 1766, Hanway uses information collected from these registers to demonstrate the appalling mortality rates of orphans in care...

John Evelyn (1620 1706), a founder member of the Royal Society, was a horticulturalist and author, best remembered for his diaries. Throughout his prolific writings he exhibits a strong distaste for the corruption of life at court. The beautiful and pious Margaret Godolphin (1652 78), a courtier more than thirty years Evelyn's junior, with whom he struck up an intense friendship in 1672, was maid of honour in the household of Queen Catherine, wife of King Charles II. To Evelyn she represented the antithesis of the corruption he despised. Written as 'a record of her perfections' following her...

First published in 1777 by the philanthropist John Howard (1726 90), this work was intended for as wide a readership as possible. Based on research from more than 300 visits to at least 230 different penal institutions on his extensive travels around Great Britain, Ireland and continental Europe, The State of the Prisons was a vital early contribution to the cause of penal reform. It provided, for the first time, systematic evidence of poor management and degrading conditions in institutions at home and abroad. Although Howard saw only limited changes to prisons in his lifetime, his labours...

Maria Fitzherbert (1756 1837) was already twice widowed when the young Prince of Wales began his pursuit of her in 1784. Initially refusing his offer of marriage, she eventually accepted it and the couple were wed in secret the following year. Though legitimate in her eyes, the union was invalid under the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, and controversial because of her Catholicism. A posthumous attack on her faith and morals, penned by Lord Holland in his Memoirs of the Whig Party, provoked her close friend Charles Langdale (1787 1868) into publishing this defence in 1856. A champion of Catholic...

A friend of Wilberforce and Bentham, Sir Samuel Romilly (1757 1818) combined considerable legal expertise with commitment to progressive political causes such as the abolition of the slave trade. During his time in Parliament - he was Solicitor General in Lord Grenville's 'Ministry of All the Talents' - he sought to lessen the archaic severity of English criminal law regarding corporal and capital punishment. Though he met with resistance, his efforts raised awareness and influenced later reforms. Compiled by his sons and published in 1840, this three-volume collection of autobiographical...

A friend of Wilberforce and Bentham, Sir Samuel Romilly (1757 1818) combined considerable legal expertise with commitment to progressive political causes such as the abolition of the slave trade. During his time in Parliament - he was Solicitor General in Lord Grenville's 'Ministry of All the Talents' - he sought to lessen the archaic severity of English criminal law regarding corporal and capital punishment. Though he met with resistance, his efforts raised awareness and influenced later reforms. Compiled by his sons and published in 1840, this three-volume collection of autobiographical...

A friend of Wilberforce and Bentham, Sir Samuel Romilly (1757 1818) combined considerable legal expertise with commitment to progressive political causes such as the abolition of the slave trade. During his time in Parliament - he was Solicitor General in Lord Grenville's 'Ministry of All the Talents' - he sought to lessen the archaic severity of English criminal law regarding corporal and capital punishment. Though he met with resistance, his efforts raised awareness and influenced later reforms. Compiled by his sons and published in 1840, this three-volume collection of autobiographical...

Although she overcame a stammer to fulfil her acting ambitions, Elizabeth Simpson (1753 1821), known as Mrs Inchbald after her marriage in 1772, was more acclaimed for her good looks than her performances. Her husband was an actor, and she formed strong friendships with Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble, but her greatest impact was as a playwright, novelist, editor and critic. Despite her decision to destroy a four-volume autobiography, her extensive surviving journals and letters allowed James Boaden (1762 1839) to publish this two-volume work in 1833. Having produced biographies of...

A landmark in female historiography, this work first appeared in eight volumes between 1763 and 1783. Notable for her radical politics and her influence on American revolutionary ideology, Catharine Macaulay (1731 91) drew diligently on untapped seventeenth-century sources to craft her skilful yet inevitably biased narrative. Seen as a Whig response to David Hume's Tory perspective on English history, the early volumes made Macaulay a literary sensation in the 1760s. Later instalments were less rapturously received by those critics who took exception to her republican views. Both the product...