How Bridgerton’s real life Lady Whistledown scandalised 18th-century society
The Guardian -

The subversive work of Eliza Haywood, the feminist forerunner of the TV show’s gossip columnist, is about to be republishedShe is the real-life Lady Whistledown, an eyebrow-raising female writer who penned a salacious anonymous gossip sheet that skewered 18th-century London society.Like the fictional pamphlet from Netflix hit Bridgerton, which returned for a third series last week, Eliza Haywood’s The Parrot, published in 1746, has a distinctive, mocking voice that punches up and “speaks truth...

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