The immortal dinner - Penelope Hughes-Hallett

This text celebrates this unique gathering, setting it against a backdrop of change, reflected in the preoccupations of the diners as they sat on that memorable winter's evening drinking toasts, and expatiating on their deepest convictions. This was a time when the contemporary world of literary London society was to be seen at its extraordinary gifted best. The Elgin Marbles controversy still raged; Mrs Siddons performed Lady Macbeth in her drawing room to a distinguished audience; Humphry Davy, great electro-chemist, composed passable verse, and Joseph Ritchie, young physician and would-be poet, prepared to explore the river Niger with a copy of Keats' "Endymion" in his pocket. A compelling and immediate picture emerges of these rare spirits, much of it in their own words, taken from their letters and diaries and those of their friends. The author takes us straight into the rich world of the immortal dinner and reveals gusts who are not merely figures from history, but are startlingly modern, earthly and sympathetic.