What were the sources of pleasure during the eighteenth century? The range of pleasurable activities from the bawdy and perverse to the refined are brought together in this collection of essays, which is the first to look at both the philosophy and practice of the pleasure-seeking Georgians. Experts on the arts of pleasure will luxuriate over Italian opera, gastronomic delights, the pleasures of Gothic terror, seduction, and the revellers of the bizarre London clubs.

Introduction; M.Mulvey Roberts
Enlightenment and Pleasure; R.Porter
Material Pleasures in the Consumer Society; R.Porter
The Pleasures of the Table; S.Varey
Pleasures Engendered by Gender: Homosociality and the Club; M.Mulvey Roberts
'The Luxury of Doing Good': Benevolence, Sensibility, and the Royal Humane Society; C.D.Williams
The Seducations of Conduct: Pleasure and Conduct Literature; V.Jones
'Strains of New Beauty': Handel and the Pleasures of Italian Opera, 1711-1728; D.Alsop
The Pleasures of Terror: Gender and the Sublime Revisited; E.J.Clery
Burns and Wordsworth: Art and 'The Pleasure which There is in Life Itself'; S.Manning
Index.