Social

Roman Satire, Part I: The Republican Tradition

Both before and after the fall of the Republic, Roman satirists give us an extraordinarily vivid picture of the society in which they lived, with its materialism, its opportunism, its unceasing pursuit of power and wealth.

Victorians by the Sea Shore

C.M. Yonge shows how, during the nineteenth century, the British public began to take a keen interest in the wonders of their native beaches.

The Edwardian Social Network

Guy Atkins explains what made the postcard such an extraordinary and successful phenomenon of the early 20th century and draws parallels with today’s social media.

Four Centuries of Shakespearean Production

F.E. Halliday finds that every age, from the first Elizabethan to the present one, has evolved its own methods of producing Shakespeare; sometimes with results that might have surprised the dramatist.

Shakespeare’s London

Most of Shakespeare’s working life was spent in or around the City of London. By the time he retired, Greater London – a residential as well as a commercial metropolis – was beginning to spring up beyond its ancient limits.

A Fifteenth-Century Merchant family

A solid middle-class clan who exported English wool to foreign markets, the Celys have left behind them a graphic record of their private affairs and shrewd commercial dealings, as Alison Hanham here finds.

Football in its Early Stages

E.G. Dunning finds that traditional football was a game with few rules, played riotously through the streets and across country. The nineteenth century saw its evolution on the playing fields of the public schools into the two main forms we know today.