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news release
Attention: TV reviewers; education correspondents; women’s editors
PR 4421
February 7, 2001
POWER, PASSION AND PLEASURE - THE SECRET LIVES OF
18TH CENTURY WOMEN
Award winning historian Amanda Vickery challenges the traditional image of 18th century women in a
new two-part BBC TWO TV series In Pursuit of Pleasure.
From the diaries that Amanda has discovered, In Pursuit of Pleasure charts a vivid, intimate and
honest account of women’s lives. Gone are the prim and proper Jane Austen style heroines as we
uncover the new world of pleasure and leisure that opened up for many women in these years.
Women enjoyed and exploited new freedoms, both through entertaining at home and also in the
flourishing theatres, pleasure gardens and assembly rooms in town.
But with these opportunities came dangers and sometimes tragedy. Women’s pursuit of pleasure and
passion could leave them vulnerable and open to all sorts of abuse.
In the first programme, ‘At Home’ Amanda reveals to us the pleasures of Elizabeth Parker’s life near
Clitheroe in Lancashire. In her happy first marriage Elizabeth was one of a growing number of
women able to break out of their social isolation. But it was not to last.
After her first husband’s death, Elizabeth’s social success and prestige were swept away when
Elizabeth alienated her family and social circle by eloping to Gretna Green with a man 17 years her
junior.
We learn Elizabeth’s intimate secrets through the detailed diaries she kept throughout her life, diaries
Amanda Vickery unearthed in her quest to show history from a women’s perspective.
“There is so much more to history than great men, battles, bishops and kings,” she says.
“During the 18th Century a whole new world of leisure open up to women. Through entertaining and
socialising at home women began to assert themselves and gain some control over their lives. But
there were risks involved and for some hidden costs and great sadness.”
m/f
-2In programme two, ‘Off to Town’, Amanda charts how the growth of new commercial entertainment
venues such as assembly rooms, balls, pleasure gardens and theatre allowed women to become
more visible in society. They enjoyed the excitement of being seen in public, of meeting men, and
competing in the fashion stakes with other women. We learn first hand about the pleasure women
enjoyed by attending such events through the letters of Rhoda Astley from Seaton Delaval in
Northumberland.
But such high visibility led to fears that women’s virtue was being compromised at such venues,
where conduct could not be regulated, where there was the excitement of contact between men and
women, and contact between different classes in a society that had, up to that point, been rigidly
segregated.
The series not only provides a fascinating insight into women’s lives but also highlights the
importance of original diaries and letters as historical records.
The programmes are an enjoyable introduction to studying history and viewers can pursue their
interest through a specially designed website and 32-page booklet containing full details about the
series and the issues it covers, as well as information about studying history with the Open
University.
Editors Notes
In Pursuit of Pleasure will be broadcast on BBC TWO on Monday March 5 and 12 at 7.30pm.
More information about the series can be found on the website www.Open2.NET from Friday
January 26, and the booklet about the series will be available by calling 0870-9007788 from March 5.
Dr Amanda Vickery is co-director of the Bedford Centre for the History of Women at the University of
London, and author of the award winning book, The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in
Georgian England.
Preview tapes and electronic images to illustrate the series are available from Fiona Leslie on the
number below.
Contact details
Open University Media Relations
Fiona Leslie
01908-653256
BBC Executive Producer
Andy Metcalf
01908-655258