Overview

When playwright and poet William Congreve (1670–1729) wrote The Way of the World at the start of the eighteenth century, he set his play in an opulent, glittering London: a city flush with wealth made possible by Britain’s empires overseas.  In this free pre-show lecture, historian Zara Anishanslin will help us to understand the visual and material worlds of Congreve’s original play, describing the links between the eighteenth-century consumption – in many senses! – of fashion, food, and design. We will learn about the luxury goods that were imported to London from across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and how these plants, animals, and minerals were used to enrich one critical eighteenth-century industry: silk manufacturing.