Susan whyman

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The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers Susan Whyman Abstract The Pen and the People shows how 18th-century men and women learned to write letters, why and how they used them, and the impact of letter writing on their lives and the wider culture. More The Pen and the People shows how 18th-century men and women learned to write letters, why and how they used them, and the impact of letter writing on their lives and the wider culture.

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Contents Go to page:. Whyman's account of the Verneys' political careers shows the family struggling, with only modest success, to understand the rules of the very different game being played in the s. Sir Ralph refused to treat voters in Parliamentary elections and longed for consensus. Sir John, while he always sought to buy votes at the cheapest possible rate, had no compunctions about spreading money around. Whyman shows how important party divisions were in late Stuart society as Whigs and Tories segregated themselves, and ties of kinship were broken by political disagreements.

In , John, a dedicated Tory, was not even invited to the funeral of his cousin and former ward, Edmund Denton, a Whig. John's Tory activism earned him an Irish viscountcy, but, as the author points out, thanks to his lack of a base at Court he never achieved the national status of his local rivals the Temples or Whartons.

A larger part of Whyman's story is the importance of younger sons and women in determining the course of a family's destiny. John had a very different outlook upon life than his father and elder brother, shaping the Verney family's responses to the world around them in significant ways.

John's three wives, his six aunts, and many female cousins also played an important role, especially as the arbiters of an increasingly pervasive London-dominated and rule-bound civility. These are important insights.

Whyman's consideration of the London marriage market makes clear the importance of both the capital and women in one of the most important aspects of gentry life. As she rightly points out, it is often difficult to see the female hand in marriage negotiations if we focus only upon settlements and the work of attorneys.

But the Verney correspondence, with its trove of letters, shows how important women were as brokers and advisors. Whyman does not claim that the Verneys were typical of the late-Stuart gentry. They were undoubtedly unique in some ways, as every family is. But they do typify the common strategies and assumptions of the gentry, and were, in the end, more successful than many other families--Verneys live in Claydon House to this day. Susan Whyman's superb study reveals a great deal about gentry life and should be read by anyone with an interest in England's transformation to modernity.

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