The truth of the scandal sheet – how real is Lady Whistledown?
By: Communications
With the newest episodes of Bridgerton airing this week, following the usual scandal and drama of the Ton, a University of East Anglia academic has shared what gossip columns were like during the Regency era.
Dr James Wood, Associate Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, said: “In the show Lady Whistledown is writing her scandal sheets, but knowing who was writing the gossip columns of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is much more difficult, as these were anonymous.
“What we do know is that Elizabeth Inchbald, an East Anglian playwright and actor, wrote for The World, and this included gossip.
“As well as this, the first newspaper that was published on a Sunday was edited by Elizabeth Johnson. This was the Sunday Monitor and British Gazette, and Elizabeth devoted many inches of her newspaper to gossip.”
Dr Wood added: “Gossip columns were very popular in this time. One of the most well-read periodicals, the Town and Country magazine, had a regular column called the Tête-à-Tête and a circulation of over ten thousand.
“Just like in Bridgerton, the gossip columns of the past were very much interested in the doings of of unmarried men and women. For example, in the Town and Country magazine, there was an article on Joseph Banks and his escapades in the South Pacific while being engaged to a young woman in England.
“But they were also very much interested in what married people were doing. for example, Town and Country extensively covered trials for bigamy and adultery.”
Dr Wood has previously written the chapter ‘Periodicals and the Problem of Women’s Learning’ in the book Women's Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1690-1820s: The Long Eighteenth Century and has authored the book Anecdotes of Enlightenment: Human Nature from Locke to Wordsworth.
Watch Dr Wood talk in more depth:
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