Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Politics and privacy; 2. Disagreement and deliberation; 3. Plurality: women's circles in London; 4. Radical literary women; 5. Gender and deliberative equality; 6. Negotiating equality; 7. A private affair; 8. Music and movement; Conclusion. Life during wartime.

Promotional Information

An innovative new reading of the character of, and tensions in, London's radical intellectual culture at the time of the French Revolution.

About the Author

Mark Philp is Professor of History at the University of Warwick and an Emeritus Fellow of Oriel College. He has published widely on the history of ideas, late 18th and early 19th century European history, and on political realism and ethics in public life. He is the author of Political Conduct (2007) and Reforming Political Ideas in Britain (2013).

Reviews

'Radical Conduct is a remarkable redefinition of sociability as political practice. For Godwin, Wollstonecraft and their friends, the personal was always political, and their politics had to be tested against their conduct, as they attempted to challenge habit and custom though everyday interactions recorded in their diaries, letters, and fiction.' Jon Mee, University of York

'Mark Philp's important study advances debates on late-eighteenth-century social, political and literary culture in crucial ways, reconceptualizing the ways that people thought about and practised both politics and sociability in the period. Its focus on lived experience and conduct demonstrates the ways in which political aspirations often clashed with practice.' Mary Fairclough, University of York

'Philp's overall achievement is a rich, nuanced, and often poignant picture of how metropolitan radicalism was practiced in the age of revolutions.' Gordon Pentland, Journal of British Studies

'Philp's … portrait of 1790s literary radicalism immeasurably enriches our understanding of the world that shaped democratic combat during a transformative moment in British politics.' Barbara Taylor, History Workshop Journal

'This volume augments this outstanding contribution by focusing on the London “middling orders” who made up Godwin's literary circle and others like it, men like Thomas Holcroft, and a great many women, including Mary Hays, Elizabeth Inchbald, Amelia Alderson, and Mary Wollstonecraft, who amongst others are given special attention here.' Gregory Claeys, International Review of Social History

'… a careful, nuanced study of how London's radical reformist circles pursued 'deliberative equality' within a context of significant social inequality … Emerging from pandemic social and intellectual isolation, this book takes on a resonance that makes it a particularly profound read.' Miriam L. Wallace, Eighteenth-Century Fiction

'… a superb contribution to studies of popular and literary radicalism during the French and Napoleonic wars. It offers a deeper understanding of notions of sociability, friendship, and gender in this period.' Katrina Navickas, The American Historical Review

'… a strikingly original work which should be read by historians and literary scholars of the period 1789–1815.' James Epstein, Studies in Romanticism