Join the fabulous Mary Lister for an illustrated talk on the ‘Radical’ Georgian female writers who were in correspondence with Theresa Lewis. As a biographer, novelist, saloniere and collector…she was in our modern terms an ‘ influencer’.

Born Theresa Villiers in 1802, she married Thomas Henry Lister, novelist and first Registrar of Birth, Marriages and Deaths. Later marrying Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Lord Chancellor and politician, allowed her access to all the major Royals, politicians, artists, writers and historians of her day… and became a collector of their correspondence in five major volumes of loose letters. As the biographer of Mary Berry, a Georgian historian and traveller, she inherited many of Horace Walpole’s collected letters from her, including one from Lord Byron, two from Thomas Chatterton, and four from David Hulme the philosopher. But it doesn’t stop there! She also had a collection of Royal letters from her father George Villiers, revealing the shocking scandals of George III’s madness, George the IV’s divorce to Princess Caroline, and Princess Amelia’s contested will.

Mary Lister just happens to be her three times great granddaughter, inherited the letters and is joining the York Georgian Festival to illuminate these radical writers from 1780 to 1830, from letters in the collection.  These will include Maria Edgeworth, Madame de Stael, Lady Caroline Lamb, Lady Sydney Morgan, Joanna Baillie, Mary Somerville, Lady Anna Isabella Noel Byron, his wife, and his daughter, Ada Lovelace, Harriet Grote, historian and philosopher, and many others…including Mary Berry herself.

Start time: 11:00 (Doors open 10:45)

Finish time: 12:00

Refreshing cloudy lemonade on arrival

Location: York Mansion House, St Helen's Square, York, YO1 9QL

Please note we have 2 wheelchair spaces available, please email ymhevents@york.gov.uk or call us on 01904 553663 when booking your tickets to secure a wheelchair space.

Non-refundable