George Cruikshank, The Prince Regent: "Gent. No Gent & Regent!!, July 5, 1816.

This image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Prince_Regent.jpg

For most of us, the mere words “Regency era” instantly conjure up a fully fleshed-out imagined world - almost certainly inflected by TV/film adaptations.

This imagined world is usually centred on the royal court or the trials and tribulations of being close thereto/distant therefrom, with beautiful young men and women navigating the marriage market with varying degrees of wit, hauteur, feistiness, and success (soggy see-through shirts or clearly-irresistible ice cream may well make an appearance). All this is, of course, set against a backdrop of fabulously elegant and opulent art and architecture, elaborate etiquette, promenades in exquisite pleasure gardens, gorgeous frocks, heaving bosoms, and glittering society balls, and entails devastating scandals which will hopefully have a happy ending.

But… There was also a pulsating underworld of vice, violence, and venality which has only featured in popular representations of the era relatively recently. Join us as we explore the multiple Regency worlds, via a varied cast which includes princes, brothel-keepers, dukes, mollies, Charleys, dandies, artists, gamblers, poets, bluestockings, and body-snatchers… not to mention Tom and Jerry (yes: the original ones!).

RJW F2501 Online course (via Zoom)

7 weeks, Monday 13 January - Monday 3 March (incl., with half-term break on 17 February).

£80 (individual registration); £144 (for two people sharing one screen).