Chawton House’s digital living room reopens for the Autumn/Winter season with the first of a series of digital events exploring the life and work of Mary Robinson. The event takes place online, 9-10.30pm BST.

Our September programme includes talks from three academics, setting the scene for Mary Robinson's time on the eighteenth-century stage:

Fiona Ritchie, ‘Women and Shakespeare on the Eighteenth-Century Stage’

Fiona Ritchie is Associate Professor of Drama and Theatre in the Department of English at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. She is the author of Women and Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century (2014) and the co-editor (with Peter Sabor) of Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century (2012).

Ellen Ledoux, ‘Mother of Reinvention: Mary Robinson’s Recuperative Motherhood in the Memoirs’

Ellen Malenas Ledoux is an Associate Professor in the English and Communication Department at Rutgers University-Camden (USA). Her research focuses on transatlantic literature of the eighteenth century. She is the author of two books: Laboring Mothers: Reproducing Women and Work in the Eighteenth Century (University of Virginia Press, 2023) and Social Reform in Gothic Writing: Fantastic Forms of Change, 1764-1834 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). She has published widely on women’s cultural history and Gothic writing in journals such as Studies in Romanticism, The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, Women’s Writing, and Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture.

Laura Engel, ‘Strike a Pose: The Many Faces of Mary Robinson’

Laura Engel is a Professor in the English Department at Duquesne University, where she specializes in eighteenth-century literature, theater, gender studies, and material culture. She is the author of The Art of the Actress (Cambridge University Press Elements Series, 2024), Women, Performance, and the Material of Memory: The Archival Tourist (Palgrave, 2019), Austen, Actresses, and Accessories (Palgrave Pivot, 2014), Fashioning Celebrity: Eighteenth-Century British Actresses and Strategies for Image Making (Ohio State University Press, 2011) and numerous articles, essays, and book chapters on actresses, celebrity, fashion, material culture, and women artists. She recently curated the exhibition, “The Paradox of Pearls: Accessorizing Identities in the Eighteenth Century,” which is currently on view at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

Tickets £6