On the Spot: Penelope J. Corfield
Why are you a historian of the 18th century?
I began to study the ‘long’ 18th century for the challenge of researching a period that was comparatively understudied.
What’s the most important lesson history has taught you?
Not to rush to judgement.
Which history book has had the greatest influence on you?
The Living Past: The Great Civilisations of Mankind by Ivar Lissner.
What book in your field should everyone read?
E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class.
Which moment would you most like to go back to?
Impossible to answer. I like to travel mentally to all eras.
Which historian has had the greatest influence on you?
Two contrasting influences: the creative intellect of E.P. Thompson, and the critical intellect of F.J. Fisher.
Which person in history would you most like to have met?
Charles James Fox, a politician who spent much of his career in opposition but who argued for reform at home and peace abroad.
How many languages do you have?
Spoken: English, French and Italian. I can read in German, Latin and Spanish.
What historical topic have you changed your mind on?
In postwar Britain I was prejudiced against Germany. Then I studied German history, met German people and changed my mind.
What is the most common misconception about your field?
That history is ‘dead’ and irrelevant.
Who is the most underrated person in history…
John Thelwall, a pioneering democratic campaigner.
… and the most overrated?
Henry Ford, for not contradicting his famous quote: ‘History is bunk!’
What’s the most exciting field in history today?
Not a field but a hot topic: how should historians teach horrors perpetrated by their own society?
Is there an important historical text you have not read?
Hundreds.
What’s your favourite archive?
Norfolk Record Office.
What’s the best museum?
Sir John Soane’s Museum.
What technology has changed the world the most?
The computer.
Recommend us a historical novel…
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.
… and a historical drama?
Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus.
You can solve one historical mystery. What is it?
I would establish who wrote Woman not inferior to Man … By Sophia, a Person of Quality.
Penelope J. Corfield was President of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies from 2019 to 2023. Her latest book is The Georgians: The Deeds & Misdeeds of Eighteenth-Century Britain (Yale University Press, 2022, paperback 2023).
