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British Sociability in the European Enlightenment

Cultural Practices and Personal Encounters

Palgrave Macmillan
  • Interrogates how sociable meetings between individuals of different cultures actually proceed, and which meetings proved to be meaningful or influential in the long run

  • Examines how British liberty and literature were admired and rejected, emulated and contested throughout Europe

  • Explores sociable encounters ending in mutual understanding and conflict alike

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
  2. Introduction

    • Mascha Hansen
    Pages 1-12
  3. Conceptualizing Sociability: Travel and Tourism

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13
  4. Practicing Sociability: Conflict, Commerce, and Cultural Transfer

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 85-85
    2. Sociable Encounters in Model Commercial Letters

      • Alain Kerhervé
      Pages 147-161
  5. Back Matter

    Pages 237-242

About this book

This volume covers a broad range of everyday private and public, touristic, commercial and fictional encounters between Britons and continental Europeans, in a variety of situations and places: moments that led to a meaningful exchange of opinions, practices, or concepts such as friendship or politeness. It argues that, taken together, travel accounts, commercial advice, letters, novels and philosophical works of the long eighteenth century, reveal the growing impact of British sociability on the sociable practices on the continent, and correspondingly, the convivial turn of the Enlightenment. In particular, the essays collected here discuss the ways and means – in conversations, through travel guides or literary works – by which readers and writers grappled with their cultural differences in the field of sociability. The first part deals with travellers, the second section with the spreading of various cultural practices, and the third with fictional encounters in philosophical dialogues and novels.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Greifswald, Germany

    Sebastian Domsch, Mascha Hansen

About the editors

Sebastian Domsch, Chair of Anglophone Literatures at the University of Greifswald, Germany, is the author of The Emergence of Literary Criticism in 18th-Century Britain (2014) and co-editor of British and European Romanticisms (2007) and Romantic Ambiguities: Abodes of the Modern (2017).



Mascha Hansen, Lecturer in British Literature at the University of Greifswald, Germany, focuses on women in the long eighteenth century, and has published on Frances Burney, the Bluestockings, Hester Thrale and Queen Charlotte. Her particular interests range from women’s life writings to their involvement in sociability, science and education.

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access