Elizabeth Selina Eger (born 1971) is a reader in the Department of English at King's College London. She is a specialist in women's writing of the eighteenth century, the concept of luxury, and the lives of "Bluestocking" women. She initiated and co-curated the exhibition Brilliant Women: 18th-Century Bluestockings which was held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, in 2008.
Elizabeth Eger was born in the Hammersmith district of London in 1971 [1] to John Cedric Eger, a Swiss national who became a naturalised British citizen in 1976, [2] and Selina Mary Dix Hamilton. She has a sister Helen born in 1973. Eger was educated at James Allen's Girls' School and King's College, University of Cambridge.
Eger completed her PhD at King's College Cambridge, and had research fellowships at the University of Warwick, working on "The Luxury Project", and at the University of Liverpool. She is currently a reader in English at King's College London. Her research interests include women's writing of the eighteenth century, the concept of luxury and the lives of "Bluestocking" women. [3] She initiated and co-curated the exhibition Brilliant Women: 18th-Century Bluestockings which was held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, in 2008 and with Lucy Peltz wrote the accompanying book. [4] In 2014, she appeared on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time to discuss the Bluestockings. [5]
Eger is married with two children.
A bluestocking is an educated, intellectual woman, originally a member of the 18th-century Blue Stockings Society from England led by the hostess and critic Elizabeth Montagu (1720–1800), the "Queen of the Blues", including Elizabeth Vesey (1715–91), Hester Chapone (1727–1801) and the classicist Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806). In the following generation came Hester Lynch Piozzi (1741–1821), Hannah More (1745–1833) and Frances Burney (1752–1840). The term now more broadly applies to women who show interest in literary or intellectual matters.
Anna Seward was an English Romantic poet, often called the Swan of Lichfield. She benefited from her father's progressive views on female education.
Elizabeth Carter was an English poet, classicist, writer, translator, linguist, and polymath. As one of the Bluestocking Circle that surrounded Elizabeth Montagu, she earned respect for the first English translation of the Discourses of Epictetus, by the 2nd-century Stoic philosopher. She also published poems and translated from French and Italian. Most of her other literary output took the form of correspondence to family and friends. Carter had many eminent friends and was close to Elizabeth Montagu, Hannah More, Hester Chapone, and other Bluestocking members. Anne Hunter, a minor poet and socialite, and Mary Delany were also noted as close friends. She befriended Samuel Johnson, editing some editions of his periodical The Rambler.
Hester Chapone, néeMulso, was an English writer of conduct books for women. She became associated with the London Bluestockings.
James Granger (1723–1776) was an English clergyman, biographer, and print collector. He is now known as the author of the Biographical History of England from Egbert the Great to the Revolution (1769). Granger was an early advocate of animal rights.
Elizabeth Inchbald (1753–1821) was an English novelist, actress, and dramatist. She is the author of two novels that retain prominence today.
Elizabeth Montagu was a British social reformer, patron of the arts, salonnière, literary critic and writer, who helped to organize and lead the Blue Stockings Society. Her parents were both from wealthy families with strong ties to the British peerage and learned life. She was sister to Sarah Scott, author of A Description of Millenium [sic] Hall and the Country Adjacent. She married Edward Montagu, a man with extensive landholdings, to become one of the richer women of her era. She devoted this fortune to fostering English and Scottish literature and to the relief of the poor.
Elizabeth Adkins, who was also known as Moll King, Moll Bird, Mary Godson, Mary and Maria Godson (1696–1747), was a prominent figure in London's underworld during the early 18th century. She owned King's Coffeehouse with her husband Tom King and she also allegedly worked in the sex trade and as a pickpocket.
Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon was an English religious leader who played a prominent part in the religious revival of the 18th century and the Methodist movement in England and Wales. She founded an evangelical branch in England and Sierra Leone, known as the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion.
Elizabeth Singer Rowe was an English poet, essayist and fiction writer described as "the ornament of her sex and age" and the "Heavenly Singer". She was among the most widely read 18th-century English authors. She wrote mainly religious poetry, but her best known Friendship in Death (1728) consisted of a series of imaginary letters from the dead to the living. Despite a posthumous reputation as a pious, bereaved recluse, Rowe kept up a wide correspondence and was involved in local concerns at Frome in her native Somerset. She remained popular and often translated well into the 19th century, on both sides of the Atlantic. Though little read today, scholars note she was stylistically and thematically radical for her time.
The Blue Stockings Society was an informal women's social and educational movement in England in the mid-18th century, emphasizing education and mutual cooperation. It was founded in the early 1750s by Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Vesey and others as a literary discussion group, a step away from traditional, non-intellectual women's activities. Both men and women were invited to attend, including the botanist, translator and publisher Benjamin Stillingfleet, who was not rich enough to dress properly for the occasion and appeared in everyday blue worsted stockings. The term came to refer to the informal quality of the gatherings and the emphasis on conversation over fashion.
Elizabeth Ann Sheridan was a singer who possessed great beauty. She was the subject of several paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, who was a family friend, Joshua Reynolds and Richard Samuel. An adept poet and writer, she became involved with the Blue Stockings Society and participated in Whig politics.
Jane Brereton (1685–1740) was a Welsh poet who wrote in English. She was notable as a correspondent for The Gentleman's Magazine.
Richard Samuel was an English portrait painter who won several prestigious medals in the 1770s in London. He is known for a small number of paintings including what came to be known as The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain of 1778 in which he painted the nine leading blue stocking women of his time.
Dr. Lucy Peltz is Head of Collection Displays and Senior Curator 18th Century Collections at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Dame Lucy Stuart Sutherland was an Australian-born British historian and head of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
Gillian Perry is professor of history of art at the Open University. She is a specialist in eighteenth century portraiture and has written two books on the actress in art. In 2011/12 she curated the exhibition The First Actresses at the National Portrait Gallery in London which was widely reviewed.
Georgiana Jane Henderson or Georgiana Keate was an English painter. She sat for two noted portraits and was the daughter and mother of other noted artists.
Sarah Chapone, born Sarah Kirkham and often referred to as Mrs Chapone, was an English legal theorist, pamphleteer, and prolific letter writer. She is best known for the treatise The Hardships of the English Laws in Relation to Wives, published anonymously in 1735.
Karen Hearn is a British art historian and curator. She has Master's degrees from the University of Cambridge and the University of London. She is an Honorary Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University College London. From 1992 to 2012 Hearn was the Curator of 16th & 17th Century British Art at the Tate where she curated major exhibitions on Tudor and Jacobean paintings, Anthony van Dyck, and Rubens. She has also curated exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery and the The Harley Gallery. She was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London on 1 January 2005.
