Josiah Wedgwood: Entrepreneur to the Enlightenment - Hardcover

Dolan, Brian

3.92

12 ratings by Goodreads

9780007139019: Josiah Wedgwood: Entrepreneur to the Enlightenment

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007139012 ISBN 13: 9780007139019

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2004

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An intriguing examination of the life and times of Josiah Wedgwood, potter to the Queen, and an Enlightenment pioneer.

Brian Dolan combines the remarkable story of Josiah Wedgwood, the English potter whose works are among the finest examples of ceramic art, with the story of the eighteenth century world of industry, fashion and connoisseurship.

Born in 1730 in Staffordshire, into a family with a long tradition as potters, Wedgwood survived childhood smallpox (and later, the loss of his leg), to become one of the most prestigious potters in England; Queen Charlotte was sufficiently impressed to name him ‘Royal Supplier of Dinnerware’. Depending on his business acumen, artistic sensibilities, and critically, his scientific innovations, he established a factory and village near Stoke-on-Trent named Etruria, where his revolutionary basalt and jasperware was developed.

Dolan weaves into this tale intriguing social detail: the lives of the workers at Etruria, England at the beginning of the industrial revolution, the Court of Queen Charlotte, the worlds of the Royal Society and the Men of Science; and completes a wonderful picture of the man, and of the fascinating Enlightenment period when he flourished.

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Review:

‘A marvellous shackle-breaking drama... [the lives of these] extraordinary, trend-setting female travellers’ Sunday Telegraph

’A fascinating subject’ Sunday Times

‘What shines out in a finely researched and presented work is the uncommon fortitude of these early travellers’; Daily Telegraph

About the Author:

Brian Dolan is a young American historian who received his doctorate from Cambridge University in 1995, where he is Senior Member at Hughes Hall. He has been a history lecturer in Sweden, London (at the Wellcome Institute) and Wellcome Research Lecturer at the University of East Anglia, and Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck College, London.

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