Please note this is NOT a ZOOM Lecture but an in person lecture at our museum – tickets include a complimentary glass of Devil’s Botany Absinthe
Doors open at 6:00pm and lecture starts at 6.30pm
Literary Fairies – LIVE
Fairies, under various names, are major figures in traditional European folklore, but also in modern literature and art, as creations of authors and fine artists constructing new fantasy worlds. This talk tells the story of how this came to be and looks at some of the finest examples of this process of literary creation. It tells of how imagined fairies came to be small, cute and have wings. It explores the characters and work of Hans Christian Anderson and Lewis Carroll and shows why the Victorian British went fairy-mad. It unpacks the subversive potential of nineteenth-century fairy tales, as the first literary genre to be dominated by women, and allowing of radical political and social critiques: Peter Pan began life as a sharp socialist satire. It examines the same potential in fairy painting, by allowing the expression of erotic visual subtexts. Finally, it shows how the fairy story finally morphed into the fantasy novel.
Speaker: Professor Ronald Hutton is a Professor of History at the University of Bristol. He is a leading authority on history of the British Isles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on ancient and medieval paganism and magic, and on the global context of witchcraft beliefs.
We are unable to give refunds for in person events with less than seven days notice in any circumstances
Devil’s Botany is London’s first absinthe distillery, founded by Directors of The Last Tuesday Society’s Absinthe Parlour & Cocktail Bar.
