Title: Queen of the Wits

Editors: Norma Clarke

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Price: £20.00

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Laetitia Pilkington

Category: 18th Century History

Prostitute and poetess, fallen woman and society wit, Laetitia Pilkington spent her life as close to fame as she was near to ruin. Favoured by, among others, the celebrated Jonathan Swift, she was divorced by her husband after being exposed as an adulteress. In London, she survived through her humour and her intelligence - and her skilful use of scandal - on the very fringes of respectability. Norma Clarke's hugely rich and enjoyable biography is the story of celebrity, sex and literature in the early eighteenth century. Above all, it brings to life a woman who embodied the scandal, energy and sadness of a time when literature, gossip and the lives they described were inseparable.

Educational Websites

Standards Site, BBC History, PBS Online, Open Directory Project, Virtual Library,
Education Forum, History GCSE, Design & Technology, Learn History, Music Teacher Resource,
Freepedia, Teach It, Science Active, Geography IST, Brighton Photographers, Sussex Photo History,
Compton History, Universal Teacher, English Teaching, English Online, History Learning Site,
History on the Net, Black History, Greenfield History, School History, HistoryWorld, I Love History,
E-HELP, Ed Podesta Blog, Macgregorish History, Historiasiglo20, Sintermeerten, ICT4LT

News and Search

Guardian Unlimited, Times Online, Daily Telegraph, The Independent, New York Times,
Washington Post, BBC, CNN, Yahoo News, New Scientist, Google News, Channel 4, ZDNet,
Google, Excite, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, AOL Search, Hotbot, Metacrawler, Netscape, Ask, Search,
Go, Looksmart, Dogpile, Raging Search, All the Web, Kartoo, Search Engine Watch, About