Private Vices, Public Virtues and the Emergence of the Liberal Personality in Britain 1785-1914

The modern self is said to live a life of performance. This raises the question of how the differences and contradictions in the lives people lived were managed in former times. I focus on the distinction between public and private roles. Textual evidence suggests that widespread disagreement and uncertainty about how private and public lives should be related persisted in Britain until about 1840. The debate on the question implied an ideal which I call the Liberal personality; a contrasting Tory personality is sketched. The strategies pursued by Tories in liberal times are identified and the support to them given, paradoxically, by the Liberal insistence on privacy is highlighted