Consuming Anxieties

Writers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuriesa period of vast economic changerecognized that the global trade in alcohol and tobacco promised a brighter financial future for England, even as overindulgence at home posed serious moral pitfalls. This engaging and original study explores how literary satirists represented these consumablesand related anxieties about the changing nature of Britishnessin their work. Riley traces the satirical treatment of wine, beer, ale, gin, pipe tobacco, and snuff from the beginning of Charles IIs reign, through the boom in tobaccos popularity, to the end of the Gin Craze in libertine poems and plays, anonymous verse, ballad operas, and the satire of canonical writers such as Gay, Pope, and Swift. Focusing on social concerns about class, race, and gender, Consuming Anxieties examines how satirists championed Britains economic strength on the world stage while critiquing the effects of consumable luxuries on the British body and consciousness.