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dangermousieYesterday, I went and saw Amazing Grace, a movie about William Wilberforce, a British Parliamentarian who fought for (and got passed) the 1807 Abolition of Slave Trade Act. The movie stars Ioan Gruffudd as Wilberforce, who was a very young politician, in his early 20s when elected to Parliament, and who was apparently quite the idealistic cause-head, fighting his whole life against slavery, for prison reform, and the founder of the Society Against Cruelty to Animals.
It’s a good movie, well-acted, well-put-together, and it’s actually startling and refreshing to be reminded that yes, someone like that was a real person, and there are idealists in politics, it’s not all about sordidness and money-grubbing. Apparently, WW was a close friend of William Pitt the Younger, at 24 the youngest Prime Minister in British history (Pitt and Wilberforce were college friends) and I was all excited to see Pitt in the movie (looking hot, I might add). It’s also awesome to see intelligent and energetic real life politicians.
And hey, they had Charles James Fox (as he was one of WW’s supporters despite being in a different political party) in the movie too, and ever since reading The Aristocrats by Stella Tillyard, a biography of the Richmond sisters (one of whom was his mother), I’ve been rather interested in him. I also read a book “The harlot and the statesman: The story of Elizabeth Armistead & Charles James Fox,” by I.M. Davis in college, and it was a biography of Elizabeth Armistead, Fox’s wife, as Fox quite unusually (and very awesomely) married a professional courtesan. Woo-hoo for him!
Anyway, I am going to go looking for some books on Wilberforce and Pitt. Any recs? The funny thing is, I came across a novel about Pitt a long time ago, and I only read the beginning but it’s now bugging me as to what it was. Any ideas? Any clue as to where I might look?
In any event, I want some non-fiction books about them. What are good ones? I am going to get William Hague’s William Pitt the Younger, not just because it seems the easiest to find, but also because it seems good, but any other ones? I actually really enjoy non-fiction books about politics, so if there are any recs for any such for British politics in 17th-19th centuries, do rec!
And in unrelated but historical-book news, I started reading The Disappearing Duke: The Improbable Tale of an Eccentric English Family
by Andrew Crofts and it is craaaaazy.
It’s a good movie, well-acted, well-put-together, and it’s actually startling and refreshing to be reminded that yes, someone like that was a real person, and there are idealists in politics, it’s not all about sordidness and money-grubbing. Apparently, WW was a close friend of William Pitt the Younger, at 24 the youngest Prime Minister in British history (Pitt and Wilberforce were college friends) and I was all excited to see Pitt in the movie (looking hot, I might add). It’s also awesome to see intelligent and energetic real life politicians.
And hey, they had Charles James Fox (as he was one of WW’s supporters despite being in a different political party) in the movie too, and ever since reading The Aristocrats by Stella Tillyard, a biography of the Richmond sisters (one of whom was his mother), I’ve been rather interested in him. I also read a book “The harlot and the statesman: The story of Elizabeth Armistead & Charles James Fox,” by I.M. Davis in college, and it was a biography of Elizabeth Armistead, Fox’s wife, as Fox quite unusually (and very awesomely) married a professional courtesan. Woo-hoo for him!
Anyway, I am going to go looking for some books on Wilberforce and Pitt. Any recs? The funny thing is, I came across a novel about Pitt a long time ago, and I only read the beginning but it’s now bugging me as to what it was. Any ideas? Any clue as to where I might look?
In any event, I want some non-fiction books about them. What are good ones? I am going to get William Hague’s William Pitt the Younger, not just because it seems the easiest to find, but also because it seems good, but any other ones? I actually really enjoy non-fiction books about politics, so if there are any recs for any such for British politics in 17th-19th centuries, do rec!
And in unrelated but historical-book news, I started reading The Disappearing Duke: The Improbable Tale of an Eccentric English Family
by Andrew Crofts and it is craaaaazy.
