This book has been in the works for more than three decades. And of course, there are numerous people and institutions to thank for having discussed ideas with me, sponsored me for stays, or invited me to present papers. So after all this time, if I’ve forgotten anyone, please just put it down to creeping senility.
First and foremost, I would like to note my gratitude to my friend and mentor, John Beattie, who has enormously helped me over the years, most importantly by giving me a sterling model of both intellectual integrity and hard work. And then to my friends and colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific, John Brewer, Margot Finn, Joanna Innes, Sarah Lloyd, Randall McGowen, Danny O’Quinn, Mark Phillips, Nicholas Rogers, and Gillian Russell, more thanks for all your help, advice, and patience.
Next I would like to express my appreciation for the opportunity for both scholarly research and intellectual conversation that the following institutions afforded me during my stays: to the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University under its then-head, Iain McCalman, and later also in Australia as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Law School of the University of Adelaide and to my friends in both History and Law, and finally thanks to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, for awarding me a Fellowship for a wonderful semester there.
In Canada I would like to thank following institutes for inviting me to give a paper: the Early Modern Studies Programme at Dalhousie University, Green College at the University of British Columbia, the History Department of the University of Prince Edward Island, the Law School at the University of Toronto, and the Graduate-Faculty Colloquium at York University, Toronto.
In Britain my thanks both to the Department of History at the University of Warwick, and to the “Women and Luxury” conference held there, the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London, the Cambridge University Restoration to Reform Seminar, the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of York, the Department of History at the University of Edinburgh, and for the opportunity to give a paper at my home away from home, Clare Hall College, Cambridge.
In Australia, I received feedback and friendship at the Law School of Griffith University, and the Departments of History of the University of Newcastle, Perth, and Queensland.
I would also like to express my deep appreciation to all the staff at the Microtext Center of the University of Toronto for their unfailing good humour and assistance. In addition I must commend the attention and extraordinary patience of my fine copyeditor, Katherine Scheuer.
And last, but certainly not least, I wish to thank the History Department of the University of Oregon at Eugene.
I would also like to express my indebtedness to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding my research for many years. Also I would like to thank the Lewis Walpole Foundation for aiding in the publication of this volume.
Though it is rather obligatory to thank one’s spouse for support and assurance, for fellowship and intellectual dispute, I gladly do likewise; I would, in addition, like to thank mine for ceaseless nagging, without which I probably never would have finished this book.