How did two ordinary 18th century Anglo-Irish sisters end up gallivanting around the European continent, fraternizing with all the most radical and revolutionary minds of the Enlightenment, and becoming BFFs with a Russian Princess?
Guest Alexis Wolf introduces Olivia to the astonishing lives of Katherine and Martha Wilmot.
Unknown artist
Dmitry Levitzky
John Opie
Tate Gallery
unknown artist
Fyodor Rokotov, after Alexander Roslin
Kunsthistorisches Museum
Alexis Wolf is a writer and researcher with an expertise on women’s lives in the 18th and 19th centuries. She earned her PhD from Birkbeck, University of London and has taught at universities and colleges in the US and the UK. Her first book, Transnational Women Writers in the Wilmot Coterie, 1798-1840, was published by Boydell & Brewer in 2024. She co-edited The Palgrave Handbook of Women in Science since 1660 (2022) and has authored many articles on women’s literary lives, relationships and travels. She is originally from Seattle and lives in East Sussex, UK.
Music featured in this episode included:
Beethoven’s “Langsam und Sehnsuchtvoll” and Sonata for Violin and Piano in D Major Op. 12 No. 1: Allegro con brio
and Chopin’s Etude Op. 10 No. 4 in C# Minor, Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op. 31, and Ballade No. 2
performed by Amanda Setlik Wilson
Saint-Saëns’ Sonate for Bassoon and Piano, Op. 168 performed by Michael Christoph & Amanda Setlik Wilson
“Killarney Boys of Pleasure”/”Pull the Knife and Stick it in Again” and “The Cricket Marches Over the Salt Box/The Silver Spear/Contradiction” by Killarney
“A Duck Was Swimming” by Tatyana Kalmykova
“Vyydu l’ ja na rechen’ku” by Lidija Ruslanova
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