Pg. 99: Donna T. Andrew's "Aristocratic Vice"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test: Aristocratic Vice: The Attack on Duelling, Suicide, Adultery, and Gambling in Eighteenth-Century England by Donna T. Andrew.

About the book, from the publisher:

Aristocratic Vice examines the outrage against—and attempts to end—the four vices associated with the aristocracy in eighteenth-century England: duelling, suicide, adultery, and gambling. Each of the four, it was commonly believed, owed its origin to pride. Many felt the law did not go far enough to punish those perpetrators who were members of the elite. In this exciting new book, Andrew explores each vice’s treatment by the press at the time and shows how a century of public attacks on aristocratic vices promoted a sense of “class superiority” among the soon-to-emerge British middle class.

Learn more about Aristocratic Vice at the Yale University Press website.

Donna T. Andrew is professor emerita of history at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

The Page 99 Test: Aristocratic Vice.

--Marshal Zeringue