Daisy Hay Interviewed by Suzi Feay

Literary biographer and historian Daisy Hay tells the story of the Romantic and revolutionary thinkers and writers of the late 18th-century who gathered every week around the table of the publisher Joseph Johnson.

Johnson’s dinner table was graced by the likes of William Wordsworth, Joseph Priestley, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Coleridge, William Blake, Anna Barbauld, Maria Edgeworth and Mary Wollstonecraft. Hay says Johnson was publishing books at a time of profound political, social, cultural and religious change. His authors pioneered new medical treatments, proclaimed the rights of women and children, and charted the evolution of Britain’s relationship with America and Europe. Johnson ensured their voices were heard even when external forces tried to silence them.

Hay is a winner of the Leverhulme Prize, which recognises the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future career is exceptionally promising. She is also author of Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron and Other Tangled Lives and Mr and Mrs Disraeli: A Strange Romance.