Aaron Hill: The Muses' Projector, 1685-1750

by Christine Gerrard

Overview

Christine Gerrard offers a lively and engaging account of one of the most interesting yet neglected figures in the age of Pope. Theater impresario, poet, and commercial entrepreneur, Aaron Hill enjoyed close relationships with Eliza Haywood and Samuel Richardson, and endured a difficult love-hate frienship with Pope.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198183884
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/09/2003
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Christine Gerrard is Fellow and Tutor in English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Her publications include The Patriot Opposition to Walpole: Poetry, Politics, and National Myth, 1725-1742 (OUP 1994) and, with Douglas Fairer, Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology (Blackwell 1999). She is editor of the forthcoming Blackwell Companion to Eighteenth-Century Poetry.

Table of Contents

List of IllustrationsAbbreviationsIntroduction1. Hackney Apollo, 1685-17112. Schemes and Projects, 1712-17213. 'Heavenly Clio': the making of the Hillarian circle, 1720-17234. The 'Scorpion Haywood': the breaking of the Hillarian circle, 1723-17255. The Plain Dealer and the religious sublime, 1724-17286. 'Dipt in the Dirt': Pope, cultural politics, and Grub Street, 1728-17337. Hill and the London stage, 1731-17368. Hill, Voltaire, and Prince Frederick, 1733-17389. 'Essex man': Richardson and the Hill family, 1733-173810. Patriotism, fame, and death, 1743-1750Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"Ms. Gerrard argues a strong case for a Whig style of art that was not necessarily inferior to the satirical mannerism of Pope and his allies.... Her magisterial examination of Hill covers every aspect of his existence, as adventurer (his first work was a travelogue, written at age twenty-three, through the Middle East), married man, father, lover, entrepreneur, financier, politician, and finally valetudinarian."—Scriberlian

"A rewarding book.... Gerrard carefully reconstructs the cultural politics of Grub Street."—Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

From the Publisher