‘Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it, not a penny was there in it, only ribbon round it.’ Generations of children have grown up knowing Kitty Fisher from the nursery rhyme, but who was she? Remembered as an eighteenth-century ‘celebrated’ courtesan and style icon, it is surprising to learn that Kitty’s career in the upper echelons of London’s sex industry was brief. For someone of her profession, Kitty had one great flaw: she fell in love too easily. Kitty Fisher managed her public relations and controlled her image with care. In a time when women’s choices were limited, she navigated her way to fame and fortune. Hers was a life filled equally with happiness and tragedy, one which left such an impact that the fascinating Kitty Fisher’s name still resonates today. She was the Georgian era’s most famous – and infamous – celebrity. This is more than just a biography of Kitty Fisher’s short, scandalous and action-packed life. It is also a social history of the period looking not just at Kitty but also the women who were her contemporaries, as well as the men who were drawn to their sides... and into their beds. In this meticulously researched, lively and enjoyable book we discover the real woman at the heart of Kitty Fisher’s enduring myth and legend.

This is the first scholarly study to focus on satirical prints of women in the late eighteenth century. This was the golden age of graphic satire: thousands of prints were published, and they were viewed by nearly all sections of the population. These prints both reflected and sought to shape contemporary debate about the role of women in society. Cindy McCreery's study examines the beliefs and prejudices of Georgian England which they revealed.

This study undertakes a new definition of the 18th-century novel's investment in visual culture, tracing the relationship between the development of the novel and that of the portrait, particularly as represented in the novel itself.